Assistant Professor Mi Qixi’s group from the School of Physical Science and Technology (SPST) has recently made new progress in the study of optoelectronic properties of perovskite materials. Their research work, “Stabilizing the CsSnCl3 Perovskite Lattice by B-Site Substitution for Enhanced Light Emission,” has been published in the academic journal Chemistry of Materials, with two undergraduate students Wu Ziyan and Zhang Qiqi as leading authors.
This paper analyzes the structural instability of CsSnCl3 (cesium tin chloride). Under the guidance of theory, the researchers found that CsSnCl3 can form uniform and stable perovskite crystal structure after partial tin ions are replaced by specific proportions of manganese or indium ions. The new perovskite semiconductor material has excellent optoelectronic properties and potential applications in the field of electroluminescent devices. These results fill in the research gap related to the CsSnCl3 material, and have been appraised to be “a challenging work” by reviewers of Chemistry of Materials.
This research achievement by two undergraduates is due to the concept of “integration of research and education” and the system of college mentors at ShanghaiTech University, as well as the superior research resources for undergraduate research and thesis work. After joining Professor Mi’s research lab, Zhang Qiqi started a new research project, quickly grasped the research objectives, and found the key experimental conditions after many failures. Subsequently, Wu Ziyan, another mentee of Professor Mi, made persistent efforts to further improve the preparation method of the materials and obtained high-quality experimental samples and data.
The application of a variety of measurement methods has been substantially helped by Li Binghan, Shi Zhifang, and Chen Yi, graduate students of Professor Mi. Xu Kaimin, a graduate student of Assistant Professor Ning Zhijun, explored the techniques for fabricating light-emitting devices. All research work was performed at ShanghaiTech University, and Professor Mi is the corresponding author. Operation of the relevant instruments was also assisted by Dr. Yu Na of the Analytical Instrumentation Center of SPST, and by graduate students Qin Xuedi and Zhao Mingxing.
This work is financially supported by a State Key Research Project from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and ShanghaiTech start-up funding for teaching and research. A Chinese patent (CN201910484099.X) has been filed for the new optoelectronic materials developed in this work.
Read more: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00433
Partial substitution of Sn2+ in CsSnCl3 by Mn2+ or In3+ affords a stable perovskite crystal structure as well as excellent light-emitting properties.
Research team from left: Xu Kaimin, Prof. Ning Zhijun, Wu Ziyan, Zhang Qiqi, Prof. Mi Qixi, Chen Yi, Shi Zhifang, Li Binghan.