Termination Dependence of Tetragonal CH3NH3PbI3 Surfaces for Perovskite Solar Cells

We investigated the termination dependence of structural stability and electronic states of the representative (110), (001), (100), and (101) surfaces of tetragonal CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI(3)), the main component of a perovskite solar cell (PSC), by density functional theory calculations. By examining various types of PbIx polyhedron terminations, we found that a vacant termination is more stable than flat termination on all of the surfaces, under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions of bulk MAPbI(3). More interestingly, both terminations can coexist especially on the more probable (110) and (001) surfaces. The electronic structures of the stable vacant and PbI2-rich flat terminations on these two surfaces largely maintain the characteristics of bulk MAPbI(3) without midgap states. Thus, these surfaces can contribute to the long carrier lifetime actually observed for the PSCs. Furthermore, the shallow surface states on the (110) and (001) flat terminations can be efficient intermediates of hole transfer. Consequently, the formation of the flat terminations under the PbI2-rich condition will be beneficial for the improvement of PSC performance.