Nonradiative
charge recombination comprises a main pathway for
energy losses that impedes the performance of all-inorganic perovskite
solar cells. Grain boundaries (GBs) defects are unavoidable in low-temperature
solution-processed perovskite polycrystalline films, but their role
remains unclear. By performing ab initio nonadiabatic (NA) molecular
dynamics simulations, we illustrate that electron–hole recombination
in CsPbBr3 takes place over 100 ps, achieving a good agreement
with experiment. Introduction
of GBs into CsPbBr3 accelerates the recombination, while
GBs doping with chlorine notably slow it down. Importantly, GBs do
not create deep electron traps because they only narrow the band gap
slightly. GBs localize electron wave functions at boundaries and activate
additional phonon modes, leading to an enhanced NA coupling and a
shortened coherence time. Consequently, the interplay between the
three competitive factors accelerates the recombination by a factor
of 2. Chlorine doping diminishes the mixing of electron and hole wave
functions and reduces the NA coupling, which also shortens the coherence
time further by introducing higher-frequency phonons, notably delaying
the recombination. Our study establishes the atomistic mechanism that
the acceleration and retardation in electron–hole recombination
induced by GBs and chlorine doping in CsPbBr3 perovskite,
providing new insights to improve the material properties via passivating
the GB by chemical doping.
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