Chemical Transformation of Lead Halide Perovskite into Insoluble, Less Cytotoxic, and Brightly Luminescent CsPbBr3/CsPb2Br5 Composite Nanocrystals for Cell Imaging

Lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) have been widely investigated owing to their potential applications as optoelectronic devices. However, these materials suffer from poor water stability, which make them impossible to be applied in biomedicine. Here, insoluble CsPbBr3/CsPb2Br5 composite NCs were successfully synthesized via simple water-assisted chemical transformation of perovskite NCs. Water plays two key roles in this synthesis: (i) stripping CsBr from CsPbBr3/Cs4PbBr6 and (ii) modifying the coordination number of Pb2+ (six in CsPbBr3 and Cs4PbBr6 vs eight in CsPb2Br5). The as-prepared CsPbBr3/CsPb2Br5 composite NCs not only retain the photoluminescence quantum yield (up to 80%) and a narrow full width to half-maximum of 16 nm, but also present excellent water stability and low cytotoxicity. With these properties, the CsPbBr3/CsPb2Br5 composite NCs were demonstrated as efficient fluorescent probes in live HeLa cells. We believe that our finding not only provides a new method to prepare insoluble, narrow-band, and brightly luminescent CsPbBr3/CsPb2Br5 composite NCs, but also extend the potential applications of lead halides in biomedicine.