Hierarchical Structures from Nanocrystalline Colloidal Precursors within Hybrid Perovskite Thin Films: Implications for Photovoltaics

Originating from stochastic nanocrystalline colloidal precursors with differential chemical compositions, crystalline thin films exhibit hierarchical structures originating at the crystallographic level and scaling up to mesoscale structures, manifested within their nanocrystalline morphology and mesoscale topology. We interlink morphogenetic signatures within thin films to differential precursor chemistry and explain the cooperative impact of structure-defining inorganic and organic counterparts on perovskite hybrids. Understanding the effect of chemical species on the structural characteristics of thin films and leveraging complex assembly processes present facile routes to tuning multiscale morphologies in thin films, pertinent for engineering functional performance metrics within thin-film perovskite photovoltaics.