Presentation description

In the material science realm, perovskites have been an exploding topic of research and exploration. In particular, a sub-field of the perovskite fascination has looked at how two-dimensional varieties of these structures can be used to make semiconducting devices, particularly to replace or complement silicon wafers in solar cells. Vital to developing and optimizing these materials for semiconducting uses is understanding how adjustments to a perovskite's composition affect its optical properties. Two of these properties of interest are bandgap and exciton binding energy. However, there is a lack of general consensus as to what these quantities are, as across the literature the numerical range of these values widely varies.  The focus of this project has been the creation and testing of an optical table which can be used for electroabsorption spectroscopy, a spectroscopy technique that our lab has previously shown yields precise values for bandgap and exciton binding energies. This process has included purchasing the necessary equipment, creating a LABVIEW program that can simultaneously control a lock-in amplifier and monochromator, creating an optical set-up which will focus the light onto the sample, and synthesizing two-dimensional perovskites with known electroabsorption spectra to determine the resulting device's accuracy and precision. Future work will entail producing consistent thin-film samples of two-dimensional lead bromide perovskites and using electroabsorption spectroscopy to determine their optical properties.