Polar Surfaces Suppress Ripening in Ligand-Mediated Sonication Synthesis of MAPbBr3 Nanocrystals

Abstract

Controlling the nucleation, growth, and ripening stages in the synthesis of perovskite nanocrystals remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate that altering the availability of polar surfaces by introducing glass beads into a ligand-mediated transport synthesis of MAPbBr3 nanocrystals increases heterogeneous nucleation, giving a larger population of NCs that are smaller in size. Ostwald ripening is suppressed owing to the increased glass surface area, but the resulting NCs are not as well capped by organic ligands. This work highlights the idea that the polarity of the surfaces available within a reaction environment can be used to tune the nucleation and growth of perovskite nanocrystals.