Pressure-Induced Structural and Optical Properties of Inorganic Halide Perovskite CsPbBr3.

Perovskite photovoltaic materials are gaining sustained attention because of their excellent photovoltaic properties and extensive practical applicability. In this Letter, we discuss the changes in the structure and optical properties of CsPbBr3 under high pressure. As the pressure increased, the band gap initially began to red shift before 1.0 GPa followed by a continuous blue shift until the crystal was completely amorphized. An isostructural phase transition at 1.2 GPa was determined by high-pressure synchrotron X-ray and Raman spectroscopy. The result could be attributed to bond length shrinkage and PbBr6 octahedral distortion under high pressure. The amorphization of the crystal was due to the severe distortion and tilt of the PbBr6 octahedron, leading to broken long-range order. Changes in optical properties are closely related to the evolution of the crystal structure. Our discussion shows that high-pressure study can be used as an effective means to tune the structure and properties of all-inorganic halide perovskites.