Direct Growth and Patterning of Single-Crystal Perovskites via Antisolvent Inkjet Printing

A dual-nozzle inkjet printing method is established to directly mix perovskite precursors and antisolvents for perovskite single-crystal patterns. An edge-deposit strategy is used to minimize the contact area between droplets, and it can effectively control nucleation sites for crystal growth. Single crystals with a grain size of up to 500 μm can be quickly produced within 10 min without substrate pretreatments or sophisticated temperature control. Compared with traditional drop evaporation methods, this strategy not only can avoid coffee-ring effects for perovskite crystals but also provides direct patterning of single-crystal perovskites. Besides the ability to print millimeter-scale perovskite crystal arrays in planar x-y directions, the technique reported here can also grow crystals along the z-axis direction for three-dimensional (3D) structures. Several examples are also given to demonstrate the capability of this method in printing perovskite crystal patterns for device fabrication.