Lead-Free Halide Double Perovskite Cs2AgBiBr6with Decreased Band Gap

Environmentally friendly halide double perovskites with improved stability are regarded as a promising alternative to lead halide perovskites. The benchmark double perovskite, Cs2AgBiBr6, shows attractive optical and electronic features, making it promising for high-efficiency optoelectronic devices. However, the large band gap limits its further applications, especially for photovoltaics. Herein, we develop a novel crystal-engineering strategy to significantly decrease the band gap by approximately 0.26 eV, reaching the smallest reported band gap of 1.72 eV for Cs(2)AgBiBr(6)under ambient conditions. The band-gap narrowing is confirmed by both absorption and photoluminescence measurements. Our first-principles calculations indicate that enhanced Ag-Bi disorder has a large impact on the band structure and decreases the band gap, providing a possible explanation of the observed band-gap narrowing effect. This work provides new insights for achieving lead-free double perovskites with suitable band gaps for optoelectronic applications.
Funding Agencies|Knut and Alice Wallenberg FoundationKnut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency [2018-004357]; VR Starting Grant [2019-05279]; Carl Tryggers Stiftelse; Olle Engkvist Byggmastare Stiftelse; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009-00971]; Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency; SSFSwedish Foundation for Strategic Research; China Scholarship Council (CSC)China Scholarship Council; Ministry of Science and High Education of the Russian Federation [075-15-2019-872 (14.Y26.31.0027/074-02-2018-327)]; Swedish Research Council (VR)Swedish Research Council [2019-05551]; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council [2016-07213]