Inch-Size Single Crystals of Lead-Free Chiral Perovskites with Bulk Photovoltaic Effect for Stable Self-Driven X-Ray Detection

Lead halide perovskites have made great advance in direct X-ray detection, however the presence of toxic lead and the requirement of high working voltages severely limit their applicability and operational stability. Thus, exploring “green” lead-free hybrid perovskites capable of detecting X-rays at zero bias is crucial but remains toughly challenging. Here, utilizing chiral R / S -1-phenylpropylamine ( R / S -PPA) cations, a pair of 0D chiral-polar perovskites, ( R / S -PPA) 2 BiI 5 ( 1 R / 1 S ) are constructed. Their intrinsic spontaneous electric polarization induces a large bulk photovoltage of 0.63 V, which acts as a driving force to separate and transport photogenerated carriers, thus endowing them with the capability of self-driven detection. Consequently, self-driven X-ray detectors with a low detection limit of 270 nGy s −1 are successfully constructed based on high-quality, inch-sized single crystals of 1 R . Notably, they show suppressed baseline drift under the self-driven mode, exhibiting superior operational stability. This study realizes self-driven X-ray detection in a single-phase lead-free hybrid perovskite by exploiting the intrinsic bulk photovoltaic effect, which sheds light on future explorations of lead-free hybrid perovskites toward “green” self-driven radiation detectors with high performance.