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The structure of the interfacial layers of lead halide perovskites is expected to play a crucial role in carrier dynamics and in the performance of perovskite-based devices. However, little is known about the structure and dynamics of perovskite interfaces at the molecular level. In this study, we access molecular dynamics at perovskite interfaces by monitoring the alignment of cations in methylammonium (MA) lead bromide perovskite. For this we apply heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation (HD-VSFG) spectroscopy with the help of DFT calculations to a range of thin-film perovskite active layers interfaced with several organic and oxide semiconducting materials. At interfaces with air, glass, TiO2 and NiO transport layers and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), we observed no signature of cation vibrations, indicating a randomized arrangement of cations. On the other hand, HD-VSFG spectra of 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis[N,N-di(4-methoxyphenyl)amino]-9,9′-spirobifluorene (Spiro-MeOTAD)/perovskite interfaces exhibited a clear peak corresponding to the ammonium antisymmetric bending mode, indicating that the MA's ammonium moiety is preferentially oriented towards the Spiro-MeOTAD layer with a large portion of MA cations are tilted away from the surface normal. The observed interfacial anisotropy is in contrast with the general picture accepted for bulk perovskite materials. We discuss the potential consequences of the observed phenomena in the context of the local field and carrier injection at the various interfaces within the perovskite solar cells.

A leading hypothesis for silver nanoparticle biosynthesis suggests that the enzyme nitrate reductase plays a key role in the process, assisted by the coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phos...

The key challenge in solution-processing efficient OLEDs is to realize the multilayer device architecture. We demonstrate that slot die coating is applicable to deposit small-molecule (SM) layers on top of each other without dissolving the underlying layer. A stack for a blue SMOLED is chosen comprising slot die-coated PEDOT:PSS, an SM emissive layer (EML) as well as an SM electron transport layer (ETL). The devices are fabricated in a sheet-to-sheet coating process with a slot die table coater under ambient conditions. While keeping the processing parameters constant for PEDOT:PSS and the EML, the composition of the ETL is varied. The choice of solvent for coating the ETL is crucial regarding wetting and dissolution of the underlying layer, solubility, surface roughness, and device efficiencies. Average roughness values down to 0.38 nm and peak to valley values around 10 nm were measured. Comparing device efficiencies of devices with and without ETL, an increase in efficiency with a factor up to 42 was achieved. In total, we show 135 blue SMOLEDs to demonstrate reproducibility.