Uncovering Multiple Intrinsic Chiral Phases in (PEA)2PbI4 halide Perovskites

Abstract: Two-dimensional (2D) halide perovskites offer a unique platform to investigate the ground-state of materials possessing significant anharmonicity. In contrast to three-dimensional perovskites, their 2D counterparts offer substantially fewer degrees of freedom, resulting in multiple well-defined crystal structures. In this work, we thoroughly investigate the anharmonic ground-state of the benchmark (PEA)2PbI4 compound, using complementary information from low-temperature x-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence spectroscopy, supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We extrapolate four crystallographic configurations from the low-temperature XRD. These configurations imply that the ground-state has an intrinsic disorder stemming from two coexisting chiral sub-lattices, each with a bi-oriented organic spacer molecule. We further show evidence that these chiral structures form unevenly populated ground-states, portraying uneven anharmonicity, where the state population may be tuned by surface effects. Our results uncover a disordered ground-state that may induce intrinsic grain boundaries, which cannot be ignored in practical applications.