Dimethylammonium Incorporation in Lead Acetate Based MAPbI3 Perovskite Solar Cells

Over the last years, several different pathways have been suggested for producing perovskite thin films for solar cell applications. While the merit of these methods with respect to the solar cell efficiency have been shown, the actual composition of the resulting thin films is often not investigated. Here, we show that methylammonium lead iodide films produced using lead acetate as a lead source can have up to 15 % dimethylammonium incorporated into their crystal structure, even though this ion is often consider to be too large for incorporation. The origin of this ion lies in the precursor solution, where it is formed in a reaction that is facilitated by the basic character of the acetate ions. We further show that these dimethylammonium ions are incorporated in a random fashion throughout the crystal structure, owing to the lack of observable ordered domains.