A lead-halide perovskite molecular ferroelectric semiconductor

Inorganic semiconductor ferroelectrics such as BiFeO(3) have shown great potential in photovoltaic and other applications. Currently, semiconducting properties and the corresponding application in optoelectronic devices of hybrid organo-plumbate or stannate are a hot topic of academic research; more and more of such hybrids have been synthesized. Structurally, these hybrids are suitable for exploration of ferroelectricity. Therefore, the design of molecular ferroelectric semiconductors based on these hybrids provides a possibility to obtain new or high-performance semiconductor ferroelectrics. Here we investigated Pb-layered perovskites, and found the layer perovskite (benzylammonium)(2)PbCl(4) is ferroelectric with semiconducting behaviours. It has a larger ferroelectric spontaneous polarization P(s)=13 μC cm(−2) and a higher Curie temperature T(c)=438 K with a band gap of 3.65 eV. This finding throws light on the new properties of the hybrid organo-plumbate or stannate compounds and provides a new way to develop new semiconductor ferroelectrics.