Nucleation-controlled growth of superior lead-free perovskite Cs3Bi2I9 single-crystals for high-performance X-ray detection

Yunxia Zhang,Ming Liu,Shengzhong Liu,Zhuo Xu,Haochen Ye,Yucheng Liu,Yihui He,Mercouri G Kanatzidis,Zhou Yang,Jiaxue You

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16034-w

Abstract

The organic-inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskites have emerged as a series of star materials for solar cells, lasers and detectors. However, the issues raised by the toxic lead element and marginal stability due to the volatile organic components have severely limited their potential applications. In this work, we develop a nucleation-controlled solution method to grow large size high-quality Cs3Bi2I9 perovskite single crystals (PSCs). Using the technique, we harvest some centimeter-sized single crystals and achieved high device performance. We find that X-ray detectors based on PSCs exhibit high sensitivity of 1652.3 μC Gyair−1 cm−2 and very low detectable dose rate of 130 nGyair s−1, both desired in medical diagnostics. In addition, its outstanding thermal stability inspires us to develop a high temperature X-ray detector with stable response at up to 100 °C. Furthermore, PSCs exhibit high X-ray imaging capability thanks to its negligible signal drifting and extremely high stability.

Highlights

The organic-inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskites have emerged as a series of star materials for solar cells, lasers and detectors
The organic-inorganic hybrid lead-halide perovskites are known for their high solar cell efficiency, they are attractive for radiation detection due to its excellent properties such as high absorption, high μτ product and low-cost solution process for fabrication[3,9,10,11,12]
With its volatile organic component that associates with instability and toxic lead element that causes environmental concern, its potential is severely limited[16,17,18]

Summary

Introduction

The organic-inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskites have emerged as a series of star materials for solar cells, lasers and detectors. We find that X-ray detectors based on PSCs exhibit high sensitivity of 1652.3 μC Gyair−1 cm−2 and very low detectable dose rate of 130 nGyair s−1, both desired in medical diagnostics. As for the applications involving human body and biological system, it is apparently desired to reduce radiation dose Some traditional semiconductors, such as α-Se, have been commercialized for X-ray detection because they can be readily deposited onto thin-film transistor (TFT) to be read out in large flat panels for high space resolution[2,7,8]. We develop a nucleation-controlled method to grow centimeter-sized all-inorganic lead-free Cs3Bi2I9 perovskite single crystals (PSCs). The Cs3Bi2I9 PSCs X-ray detector shows sensitivity as high as 1652.3 μC Gyair−1 cm−2 and detection limit less than 130 nGyair−1 s−1. It is anticipated that availability of the Cs3Bi2I9 PSCs will inspire research for generation of Xray detectors with better performance

Methods

Results

Conclusion