Alcohol-Stable Perovskite Nanocrystals and Their In Situ Capsulation with Polystyrene

In recent years, lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) have presented potential scalable applications in all fields due to their outstanding properties. However, most commonly used PNCs capped with oleic acid (OA) and oleylamine (OAm) suffer from bad stability in polar solutions and thus require various surface protections with organic or inorganic materials. Encapsulation with highly hydrophobic polystyrene (PS) is one of the most efficient ways to protect PNCs; however, the presently used swelling-shrinking strategy faces several challenges, such as weak interaction between PS chains and the surface ligands in nonpolar media causing a low encapsulation efficiency, and serious aggregation of PS particles during the shrinkage process leading to very different particle sizes. Herein, alcohol-stable polyacrylic acid-capped CsPbBr3 PNCs (i.e., PAA-PNCs) are first synthesized and then in situ encapsulated with PS shells by polymerizing styrene monomer on the PNC surfaces in a polar organic solvent (e.g., ethanol). The in situ PS-encapsulated PAA-PNCs (i.e., PAA-PNCs@iPS) exhibit outstanding monodispersity, remarkable water, heat, and UV stability, high fluorescence activity, and color purity. The unique synthesis strategy and good performances of PAA-PNCs@iPS will boost the applications of PNCs in LEDs, biological imaging, and chemosensing.

Automated summary

Lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) have potential scalable applications due to their outstanding properties, but their stability in polar solutions is an issue. In this study, alcohol-stable polyacrylic acid-capped CsPbBr3 PNCs were synthesized and then in situ encapsulated with polystyrene shells to improve stability and performance, showing promising applications in LEDs, biological imaging, and chemosensing.