Ligand effects are revealed by studying the comparing catalytic ability of isostructural gold nanoclusters with different protecting ligands.

The spontaneous α-to-δ phase transition of the formamidinium-based (FA) lead halide perovskite hinders its large scale application in solar cells. Though this phase transition can be inhibited by alloying with methylammonium-based (MA) perovskite, the underlying mechanism is largely unexplored. In this Communication, we grow high-quality mixed cations and halides perovskite single crystals (FAPbI)(MAPbBr) to understand the principles for maintaining pure perovskite phase, which is essential to device optimization. We demonstrate that the best composition for a perfect α-phase perovskite without segregation is x = 0.1-0.15, and such a mixed perovskite exhibits carrier lifetime as long as 11.0 μs, which is over 20 times of that of FAPbI single crystal. Powder XRD, single crystal XRD and FT-IR results reveal that the incorporation of MA is critical for tuning the effective Goldschmidt tolerance factor toward the ideal value of 1 and lowering the Gibbs free energy via unit cell contraction and cation disorder. Moreover, we find that Br incorporation can effectively control the perovskite crystallization kinetics and reduce defect density to acquire high-quality single crystals with significant inhibition of δ-phase. These findings benefit the understanding of α-phase stabilization behavior, and have led to fabrication of perovskite solar cells with highest efficiency of 19.9% via solvent management.

Perovskite solar cells are strong competitors for silicon-based ones, but suffer from poor long-term stability, for which the intrinsic stability of perovskite materials is of primary concern. Herein, we prepared a series of well-defined cesium-containing mixed cation and mixed halide perovskite single-crystal alloys, which enabled systematic investigations on their structural stabilities against light, heat, water, and oxygen. Two potential phase separation processes are evidenced for the alloys as the cesium content increases to 10% and/or bromide to 15%. Eventually, a highly stable new composition, (FAPbI3)0.9(MAPbBr3)0.05­(CsPbBr3)0.05, emerges with a carrier lifetime of 16 μs. It remains stable during at least 10 000 h water–oxygen and 1000 h light stability tests, which is very promising for long-term stable devices with high efficiency. The mechanism for the enhanced stability is elucidated through detailed single-crystal structure analysis. Our work provides a single-crystal-based paradigm for stability investigation, leading to the discovery of stable new perovskite materials.

We report the total structure determination of a large bimetallic nanocluster with an overall composition of [Au80Ag30(C≡CPh)42Cl9]Cl. It is the largest structurally characterized bimetallic coinage nanocluster so far. The 110 metal atoms are distributed in a concentric four-shell Russian doll arrangement, Au6@Au35@Ag30Au18@Au21. There are 42 PhC≡C- ligands and 9 μ2-chloride ligands clamping on the cluster surface. The chloride is proven to be critical for the formation of this giant cluster, as the control experiment in the absence of halide gives only smaller species. This work demonstrates that the halide can play a key role in the formation of a large metal nanocluster, and the halide effect should be considered in the design and synthesis of metal nanoclusters.

An organic macrocycle ligand is promising in precisely controlling the structures and optical properties of silver nanoclusters.

Designing functional fullerenes with roles beyond defect passivation and electron‐transporting for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is essential to the development of fullerenes and PSCs. Here, the authors design and synthesize a functional fullerene, FPD, composed of a C60 cage, a porphyrin ring, and three pentafluorophenyl groups. The structure features of FPD enable it can form chemical interactions with the perovskite lattices. These interactions enhance the defect passivation effect and prevent the decomposition of perovskite under irradiation. As a result, the FPD‐based device yields an improved power conversion efficiency of 23% with substantially enhanced operational stability (T80 > 1500 h). Furthermore, once got damaged, the FPD can prevent lead leakage by forming a stable and water‐insoluble complex (FPD‐Pb). Their findings provide a novel strategy to achieve high‐performance and eco‐friendly PSCs with functional fullerene materials.

Two unique silver nanoclusters protected by alkynyl and diphosphine ligands have been synthesized. Single crystal structural determination reveals that they have a centered anticuboctahedral Ag kernel. Such a kernel is observed for the first time in a coinage metal nanocluster. This work offers new insights into the fact that the PhC[triple bond, length as m-dash]C ligand represents a new direction in synthesizing novel metal nanoclusters.

A pair of enantiopure Au13 nanoclusters have been enantioselectively synthesized by chiral ligands with stereogenic centers at the phosphorus atoms. Their structures are determined by X-ray crystallography, which are typical models with a high symmetric core and chiral surface ligand arrangement. Correlation between the crystallographic structure, the calculation, and the circular dichroism (CD) study indicates that helical ligand arrangement inducing the core into chiral distortion accounts for the chiroptical activities in the visible region. A rare example of cocrystallization of a mixture of diastereomers has been observed for the first time for gold nanoclusters, reflecting the lack of chiral self-sorting of the ligands.