Soft Lithography for Manufacturing Scalable Perovskite Metasurfaces with Enhanced Emission and Absorption

Abstract

Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites have emerged in recent years as a promising alternative to silicon solar cells and other optoelectronic devices, mostly due to their high photon yields, long carrier lifetime, adjustable bandgap, and other merits. While patterning photonic nanostructures onto their inorganic counterparts is well established to augment their capabilities, lack of compatibility with conventional lithography techniques hinders the implementation of those principles with perovskites. Hereby, the fabrication of MAPbI3 nanophotonic structures such as nanoscale metasurfaces is demonstrated via soft lithography, a method in which the patterning is done when the perovskite is not fully crystallized, allowing for crystallization within the mold with the end result of facile and unharmful imprinting of sub-micron features onto perovskite thin films, over large areas and with the potential to scale up in a seamless way. By doing so, a substantial increase in light absorption as well as twofold photoluminescence enhancement from the perovskite thin film is shown. These results are supported by spectral and lifetime measurements. This method is pertinent to many device configurations and can assist in realizing the future of high-efficiency perovskite-based devices, including solar cells, LEDs, lasers, and more.