Multimodal electron microscopy of halide perovskite interfacial dynamics.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41813888.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10238-8 and PMC identifier 12999523.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Halide perovskite light-emitting diodes promise high-efficiency<sup>1-3</sup>, low-cost optoelectronics, yet their operational instability remains a critical barrier to practical deployment. Here we develop a multimodal in situ electron microscopy approach that integrates four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and atomic-resolution imaging to directly visualize structural and chemical evolution in a working halide perovskite light-emitting diode with nanometre precision. Our in situ biasing measurements uncover nanoscale structural and chemical transformations initiated at transport layer interfaces, including the formation of metallic lead and lead-rich secondary phases, as well as strain-driven grain fragmentation. On biasing, we observe the partial transformation of the metallic Al contact to insulating AlCl<sub>3</sub>. Crucially, whereas the bulk of the perovskite emitter remains relatively intact, our experiment shows that degradation is localized at interfaces. By comparing in situ and ex situ measurements, these results establish a mechanistic link between interfacial strain, ionic transport and electrochemical reactions in working devices, and provide a broadly applicable framework for nanoscale degradation analysis in complex multilayered optoelectronic systems using multimodal in situ biasing microscopy.