Tracking the formation of methylammonium lead triiodide perovskite

The formation mechanism of perovskite methylammonium lead triiodide (CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 ) was studied with in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) on successive depositions of thermally evaporated methylammonium iodide (CH 3 NH 3 I) on a lead iodide (PbI 2 ) film. This deposition method mimics the “two-step” synthesis method commonly used in device fabrication. We find that several competing processes occur during the formation of perovskite CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 . Our most important finding is that during vapour deposition of CH 3 NH 3 I onto PbI 2 , at least two carbon species are present in the resulting material, while only one nitrogen species is present. This suggests that CH 3 NH 3 I can dissociate during the transition to a perovskite phase, and some of the resulting molecules can be incorporated into the perovskite. The effect of partial CH 3 NH 3 substitution with CH 3 was evaluated, and electronic structure calculations show that CH 3 defects would impact the photovoltaic performance in perovskite solar cells. The possibility that not all A sites in the A PbI 3 perovskite are occupied by CH 3 NH 3 is therefore an important consideration when evaluating the performance of organometallic trihalide solar cells synthesized using typical approaches.