Fabrication of tin-based halide perovskites by pulsed laser deposition

Mixed-organic-cation perovskite absorbers as formamidinium doped methylammonium tin iodine $$(\text {NH}_2\text {CH})_{1-{x}}(\text {CH}_3\text {NH}_3)_x\text {SnI}_3$$ ($$x\le 1$$) can provide a pathway to highly efficient lead-free solar cells. Although this class of materials is known to be severely susceptible to degradation, induced among others by enhanced temperatures, humidity and illumination, an improved layer quality in view of crystal size and homogeneity is the key to diminish or even to block certain degradation channels. In this work, we present the fabrication of fully tin-based perovskites via pulsed laser deposition. The morphology is analyzed for different deposition energies and temperatures to find the optimum process window. The thin films already reveal crystalline structure at room temperature, while they are smooth and homogeneous above a critical thickness for carefully adapted deposition parameters. In contrast to the assumption that at elevated temperatures, the crystallinity is improved, and we find that the films reveal a strong organic depletion and simultaneously tin enrichment. As a measure for their suitability to be employed as photovoltaic absorbers, the band gap of the differently doped perovskites is estimated by spectroscopic ellipsometry in the range of 1.3 to 1.4 eV.