Are formation and adsorption energies enough to evaluate the stability of surface-passivated tin-based halide perovskites?

Abstract

Surface passivation is one of the effective and widely-used strategies to enhance the stability of halide perovskites with reduced surface defects and suppressed hysteresis. Among all existing reports, the formation and adsorption energies are popularly used as the decisive descriptors for screening passivators. Here, we propose that the often-ignored local surface structure should be another critically important factor governing the stability of tin-based perovskites after surface passivation, but has no detrimental effect on the stability of lead-based perovskites. It is verified that poor surface structure stability and deformation of the chemical bonding framework of Sn–I caused by surface passivation are ascribed to the weakened Sn–I bond strength and facilitated formation of surface iodine vacancy (V_I). Therefore, the surface structure stability represented by the formation energy of V_I and Sn–I bond strength should be used to accurately screen preferred surface passivators of tin-based perovskites.