Au Exchange or Au Deposition: Dual Reaction Pathways in Au-CsPbBr 3 Heterostructure Nanoparticles

We have designed a facile synthetic strategy for the selective deposition of Au metal on all-inorganic CsPbBr perovskite nanocrystals that includes the addition of PbBr salt along with AuBr salt. PbBr is necessary because the addition of Au to solutions of CsPbBr nanocrystals otherwise results in the exchange of Au ions from solution with Pb cations within the nanocrystal lattice to produce Cs Au Au Br nanocrystals with a tetragonal crystal structure and a band gap of about 1.6 eV, in addition to Au metal deposition. Including excess Pb ions in solution prevents the exchange reaction. Au metal deposits on the surface of the nanocrystals to produce the Au-CsPbBr heterostructure nanoparticles with an Au particle diameter determined by the Au ion concentration. Fluorescence quenching caused by Au deposition monotonically increases with deposition size, but the fluorescence quantum yield (QY) is significantly greater than if any cation exchange has occurred. An optimized synthesis can produce Au-CsPbBr nanoparticles with 70% QY and no evidence of cation exchange.