Perovskite nanocrystal heterostructures: Synthesis, optical properties, and applications

Abstract

Bringing together two nanostructures of different materials in a single building block can create a new platform where both can share their electronic and optical characteristics. While these have been extensively studied for metal nanoparticles and chalcogenide semiconductor nanocrystals, the literature is limited for perovskite nanocrystals. Because perovskite nanocrystals typically follow a fast formation process and also require a specific environment, their growth on other materials or vice versa indeed remains difficult. However, some success has been achieved in lead halide perovskites with several metal halides, oxides, and chalcogenides and also with noble metals. These findings indeed opened up new directions for designing perovskite nanocrystal heterostructures, investigating their heterojunctions, analyzing new properties, and exploring their possible utilizations. Summarizing all these developments, this Focus Review demonstrates challenges associated with their formation, changes in their optical properties, stability, and several applications. In addition, this work addresses a few possible future research directions regarding these perovskite heterostructures.