Recent advances of lead-free metal halide perovskite single crystals and nanocrystals: synthesis, crystal structure, optical properties, and their diverse applications

Lead halide hybrid perovskites have received massive research attention because of their unique inherent photophysical properties that driven them for potential application in the fields of photovoltaics, lightemitting devices, lasing, X-ray detector, and so on. Perovskite single crystals and nanocrystals are generally synthesized via various low-cost solution-processed techniques. The emergence of simple growth approaches of perovskite structures enable to fabricate low-cost and highly efficient devices. However, toxicity of Pb atoms and instability of perovskite structures obstruct further commercialization of these technologies. Recent efforts have been shifted to discover novel, eco-friendly, and stable leadfree metal halide perovskite (LFHP) materials and exploring their different growth processes for various device applications. This review aims to provide an up-to-date analysis of recent progress report on LFHPs and will mainly focus on their growth processes in the single crystalline and nanocrystalline forms. This review also tries to understand how the perovskite crystal structure impacts on their fundamental properties. In addition, we discuss the current progress in various field of applications and their future aspects. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.