Oxidation‐Mediated Kinetic Strategies for Engineering Metal–Phenolic Networks

The tunable growth of metal–organic materials has implications for engineering particles and surfaces for diverse applications. Specifically, controlling the self‐assembly of metal–phenolic networks (MPNs), an emerging class of metal–organic materials, is challenging, as previous studies suggest that growth often terminates through kinetic trapping. Herein, kinetic strategies were used to temporally and spatially control MPN growth by promoting self‐correction of the coordinating building blocks through oxidation‐mediated MPN assembly. The formation and growth mechanisms were investigated and used to engineer films with microporous structures and continuous gradients. Moreover, reactive oxygen species generated by ultrasonication expedite oxidation and result in faster (ca. 30 times) film growth than that achieved by other MPN assembly methods. This study expands our understanding of metal–phenolic chemistry towards engineering metal–phenolic materials for various applications.     

Methylammonium‐Mediated Evolution of Mixed‐Organic‐Cation Perovskite Thin Films: A Dynamic Composition‐Tuning Process

Methylammonium‐mediated phase‐evolution behavior of FA_1−xMA_xPbI₃ mixed‐organic‐cation perovskite (MOCP) is studied. It is found that by simply enriching the MOCP precursor solutions with excess methylammonium cations, the MOCPs form via a dynamic composition‐tuning process that is key to obtaining MOCP thin films with superior properties. This simple chemical approach addresses several key challenges, such as control over phase purity, uniformity, grain size, composition, etc., associated with the solution‐growth of MOCP thin films with targeted compositions.