Self-assembled perovskite heterostructures

The layered organic–inorganic halide perovskites are currently attracting great interest by virtue of their structural tunability and exciting optoelectronic properties. Michael Aubrey, Hemamala Karunadasa and colleagues now describe a route to synthesising an even greater diversity of structures, combining materials that were not hitherto known to crystallize together. Using organic molecules as directing groups, they show how layered perovskites can be intercalated with slabs of other inorganic structures to yield sequentially stacked crystalline arrangements — essentially 3D perovskite heterostructures that self-assemble in solution.