Single particle fluorescence imaging of perovskite nanocrystal crystallization for illustrating coupled nucleation-and-growth

Abstract Because of the lack of spatiotemporal characterization techniques, it has been of great challenge to investigate the crystallization of nanocrystals. With a high-speed structured illumination super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (SIM), we hereby report an in situ fluorescence imaging te...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lige Liu, Dashan Dong, Zhiwei Long, Wanxue Wei, Chang Sun, Wei Liu, Xiaoshuai Huang, Liangyi Chen, Haizheng Zhong, Kebin Shi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-07-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60826-x
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Summary:Abstract Because of the lack of spatiotemporal characterization techniques, it has been of great challenge to investigate the crystallization of nanocrystals. With a high-speed structured illumination super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (SIM), we hereby report an in situ fluorescence imaging technique to monitor the crystallization of perovskite nanocrystals at single-particle level. By correlating the fluorescence intensity with particle size, we illustrate the coupled nucleation-and-growth of perovskite nanocrystals in polymer matrix. The temporal fluorescence intensity analysis of individual nanocrystals reveals the diffusion-controlled growth process with a fast growth at the beginning followed by a slow growth. The analysis of ensemble nanocrystals illustrates the evolution of nucleation rate with the change of precursor concentrations. We further analyze the Gibbs free energy fluctuation of couple nucleation-and-growth. The growth free energy dominates in the continuous nucleation of perovskite nanocrystals, which accounts for the narrow size distribution. In comparison with LaMer model, the coupled nucleation-and-growth provides an alternative model to fabricate narrow sized nanocrystals.
ISSN:2041-1723