Amide-Templated Iodoplumbates: Extending Lead-Iodide Based Hybrid Semiconductors

Abstract

Lead iodide–organic hybrids (iodoplumbates) have emerged as a class of materials with promising electronic and optical properties, and potential applications in photovoltaics and electronic devices. Hybrid iodoplumbates are composed of organic cations and lead iodide anions that exhibit diverse morphologies which determine the optical and electronic properties of the crystal. However, the diversity of the iodoplumbates is limited by the types of organic cations amenable for integration into the structure. Amides represent one of the largest groups of organic molecules, yet no examples of iodoplumbates based on protonated amide cations have been demonstrated so far. In this work, we show that it is possible to consistently grow iodoplumbates from amides following two distinct pathways. The first pathway involves growing iodoplumbates using amidium (protonated amides) as the organic cation in the crystal, which occurs for tertiary amides and urea. The second pathway involves growing iodoplumbates from prima...