AIP Advances (Sep 2017)

Absence of ferroelectricity in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite

  • Mohammad Sajedi Alvar,
  • Manasvi Kumar,
  • Paul W. M. Blom,
  • Gert-Jan A. H. Wetzelaer,
  • Kamal Asadi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4994957
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 9
pp. 095110 – 095110-6

Abstract

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Ferroelectricity has been proposed as one of the potential origins of the observed hysteresis in photocurrent-voltage characteristics of perovskite based solar cells. Measurement of ferroelectric properties on perovskite solar cells is hindered by the presence of (in)organic charge transport layers. Here we fabricate metal-perovskite-metal capacitors and unambiguously show that methylammonium lead iodide is not ferroelectric at room temperature. We propose that the hysteresis originates from the movement of positive ions rather than ferroelectric switching.