Post-Synthetic Doping and Surface Ligand Engineering of Lead-Free Perovskite Nanocrystals: Tuning the Composition, Dimensionality and Dopant Characteristics

Doping in perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) offers effective means to alter and improve the magnetic, optical and optoelectronic properties of the perovskite NCs. Unlike traditional direct-synthetic doping methods, post-synthetic perovskite NCs doping reactions provide a facile doping method with the possibility of providing insights into intermediate states and reaction mechanisms through highly controllable reaction kinetics and minimum side products. As such, the previous development of post-synthetic doping reactions focused on the phase (i.e. solid or liquid) dependence of both the precursor and NC to determine dopant incorporation and diffusion kinetics. Herein, I will show a detailed study of post-synthetic doping of perovskite NCs within three distinct aspects: NCs composition, dopant interactions and the perovskite crystal dimensionality. More specifically, diffusion dynamics of Mn²⁺ dopants were interpolated and compared between lead-based and lead-free perovskite NCs. Furthermore, post-synthetic ligand engineering characterized by 1D and 2D NMR techniques was applied to enhance both the particle stability and optical properties of the doped perovskite NCs.