Abstract
Precise control of interfaces is crucial for spin generation, transport, and detection in opto-spintronics. However, the interface engineering for efficient spin injection remains a significant challenge. Here, we synthesized a helical structure of PbI2 (R-PbI2) via an interfacial chirality-induced growth approach at the heterostructure interface. This few-nanometer-thick R-PbI2 layer shows a lower lattice mismatch with both the adjacent R-NEAPbI3 (R-NEA refers to R-1-(1-naphtyl)ethylamine) and PbI2 layers, and leads to an optimal chiral interface in the chiral heterostructure with minimized residual strain and defect density. Combined with circularly polarized pump-probe spectroscopic and spin-photovoltaic measurements, our chiral heterostructure interface contributes a spin-injection efficiency up to 68%, thus leading to a degree of polarization of 29% in photocurrent. The precise synthesis of a chiral interface offers a promising route to manipulate spin dynamics and achieve a high degree of spin polarization required for advanced opto-spintronic applications.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.
References
Chen, C. et al. Circularly polarized light detection using chiral hybrid perovskite. Nat. Commun 10, 1927 (2019).
Lee, H. et al. Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity of Chiral 2D Perovskite Enabling Efficient Spin-Dependent Oxygen Evolution Reaction. Small 19, 2304166 (2023).
Kim, Y.-H. et al. Chiral-induced spin selectivity enables a room-temperature spin light-emitting diode. Science 371, 1129–1133 (2021).
Huang, Y. et al. Room-temperature electron spin polarization exceeding 90% in an opto-spintronic semiconductor nanostructure via remote spin filtering. Nat. Photonics 15, 475–482 (2021).
Fiederling, R. et al. Injection and detection of a spin-polarized current in a light-emitting diode. Nature 402, 787–790 (1999).
Jana, M. K. et al. Organic-to-inorganic structural chirality transfer in a 2D hybrid perovskite and impact on Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling. Nat. Commun 11, 4699 (2020).
Lu, H. et al. Spin-dependent charge transport through 2D chiral hybrid lead-iodide perovskites. Sci. Adv. 5, eaay0571 (2019).
Lu, H. et al. Highly distorted chiral two-dimensional tin iodide perovskites for spin polarized charge transport. J. Am. Chem. Soc 142, 13030–13040 (2020).
Liu, S. et al. Bright circularly polarized photoluminescence in chiral layered hybrid lead-halide perovskites. Sci. Adv. 9, eadh5083 (2023).
Ma, J. et al. Chiral 2D perovskites with a high degree of circularly polarized photoluminescence. ACS nano 13, 3659–3665 (2019).
Long, G. et al. Spin control in reduced-dimensional chiral perovskites. Nat. Photonics 12, 528–533 (2018).
Hautzinger, M. P. et al. Room-temperature spin injection across a chiral perovskite/III–V interface. Nature 631, 307–312 (2024).
Jang, G. et al. Core–shell perovskite quantum dots for highly selective room-temperature spin light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater., 2309335 (2024).
Liu, X. et al. Exciton chirality transfer empowers self-triggered spin-polarized amplified spontaneous emission from 1D-anchoring-3D perovskites. Adv. Mater. 35, 2305260 (2023).
Peng, Y. et al. Realization of vis–NIR dual-modal circularly polarized light detection in chiral perovskite bulk crystals. J. Am. Chem. Soc 143, 14077–14082 (2021).
Yang, L., Gao, Y., Wang, Z., Yang, L. & Shao, M. Spin detector for panchromatic circularly polarized light detection. Nat. Commun 16, 4161 (2025).
Chen, Y. et al. Manipulation of Valley Pseudospin by Selective Spin Injection in Chiral Two-Dimensional Perovskite/Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Heterostructures. ACS Nano 14, 15154–15160 (2020).
Zhan, G. et al. Stimulating and Manipulating Robust Circularly Polarized Photoluminescence in Achiral Hybrid Perovskites. Nano Lett 22, 3961–3968 (2022).
Zhang, X. et al. Heterogeneous Integration of Chiral Lead–Chloride Perovskite Crystals with Si Wafer for Boosted Circularly Polarized Light Detection in Solar-Blind Ultraviolet Region. Small 17, 2102884 (2021).
Liu, S. et al. Orientation-Driven Chirality Funnels in Chiral Low-Dimensional Lead-Halide Perovskite Heterostructures. J. Am. Chem. Soc 147, 16681–16693 (2025).
Xu, Y. et al. Elucidating Interfacial Carrier Transfer Dynamics for Circularly Polarized Emission in Self-Assembled Perovskite Heterostructures. ACS nano (2025).
Haque, M. A. et al. Remote chirality transfer in low-dimensional hybrid metal halide semiconductors. Nature Chemistry 17, 29–37 (2025).
Patterson, A. L. The Scherrer Formula for X-Ray Particle Size Determination. Physical Review 56, 978–982 (1939).
Ishii, A. & Miyasaka, T. Direct detection of circular polarized light in helical 1D perovskite-based photodiode. Sci. Adv 6, eabd3274 (2020).
Ahuja, R. et al. Electronic and optical properties of lead iodide. J. Appl. Phys. 92, 7219–7224 (2002).
Ma, S. et al. Elucidating the origin of chiroptical activity in chiral 2D perovskites through nano-confined growth. Nat. Commun 13, 3259 (2022).
Xiao, J. et al. Strain-Amplified Exciton Chirality in Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Materials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 056903 (2024).
Lv, Q. et al. Lateral epitaxial growth of two-dimensional organic heterostructures. Nature Chemistry 16, 201–209 (2024).
Wang, H. et al. Interfacial residual stress relaxation in perovskite solar cells with improved stability. Adv. Mater. 31, 1904408 (2019).
Chen, Z., Prud’homme, N., Wang, B. & Ji, V. Residual stress gradient analysis with GIXRD on ZrO2 thin films deposited by MOCVD. Surf. Coat. Technol. 206, 405–410 (2011).
Duan, T. et al. Chiral-structured heterointerfaces enable durable perovskite solar cells. Science 384, 878–884 (2024).
Bube, R. H. Trap density determination by space-charge-limited currents. J. Appl. Phys. 33, 1733–1737 (1962).
Shi, D. et al. Low trap-state density and long carrier diffusion in organolead trihalide perovskite single crystals. Science 347, 519–522 (2015).
Liu, Z. et al. Chemical reduction of intrinsic defects in thicker heterojunction planar perovskite solar cells. Adv. Mater. 29, 1606774 (2017).
Wang, H. et al. Ligand-modulated excess PbI2 nanosheets for highly efficient and stable perovskite solar cells. Adv. Mater. 32, 2000865 (2020).
Sun, X. et al. Highly efficient CsPbI3/Cs1-xDMAxPbI3 bulk heterojunction perovskite solar cell. Joule 6, 850–860 (2022).
Zhao, W. et al. Transient circular dichroism and exciton spin dynamics in all-inorganic halide perovskites. Nat. Commun 11, 5665 (2020).
Song, P. H. & Kim, K. W. Spin relaxation of conduction electrons in bulk III-V semiconductors. Phys. Rev. B 66, 035207 (2002).
Gulia, V. & Vedeshwar, A. G. Optical properties of PbI2 films: Quantum confinement and residual stress effect. Phys. Rev. B 75, 045409 (2007).
Liu, S. et al. Optically induced long-lived chirality memory in the color-tunable chiral lead-free semiconductor (R)/(S)-CHEA4Bi2BrxI10–x (x = 0–10). J. Am. Chem. Soc 144, 14079–14089 (2022).
Sun, S., Jiang, J., Jia, M., Tian, Y. & Xiao, Y. 1.5 D Chiral Perovskites Mediated by Hydrogen-Bonding Network with Remarkable Spin-Polarized Property. Angew. Chem., e202423314 (2025).
Zhang, D. et al. Room temperature near unity spin polarization in 2D Van der Waals heterostructures. Nat. Commun 11, 4442 (2020).
Li, B. et al. Chiral Quasi-2D Perovskites Based Single Junction Spin-Light-Emitting Diodes. Adv. Funct. Mater. 35, 2415433 (2025).
Lee, H. et al. A dual spin-controlled chiral two-/three-dimensional perovskite artificial leaf for efficient overall photoelectrochemical water splitting. Nat. Commun 15, 4672 (2024).
Lu, Y. et al. Spin-Dependent Charge Transport in 1D Chiral Hybrid Lead-Bromide Perovskite with High Stability. Adv. Funct. Mater. 31, 2104605 (2021).
Stroud, R. M. et al. Reduction of Spin Injection Efficiency by Interface Defect Spin Scattering in ZnMnSe/AlGaAs-GaAs Spin-Polarized Light-Emitting Diodes. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 166602 (2002).
Chen, J. et al. Preferentially oriented large antimony trisulfide single-crystalline cuboids grown on polycrystalline titania film for solar cells. Commun. Chem. 2, 121 (2019).
Luo, C. et al. Engineering the buried interface in perovskite solar cells via lattice-matched electron transport layer. Nat. Photonics 17, 856–864 (2023).
Wang, C., Li, G., Dai, Z., Tian, W. & Li, L. Patterned Chiral Perovskite Film for Self-Driven Stokes Photodetectors. Adv. Funct. Mater. 34, 2316265 (2024).
Li, M. et al. Chiral ligand-induced structural transformation of low-dimensional hybrid perovskite for circularly polarized photodetection. Chem. Mater. 34, 2955–2962 (2022).
Liu, Q. et al. Circular polarization-resolved ultraviolet photonic artificial synapse based on chiral perovskite. Nat. Commun 14, 7179 (2023).
Chen, Q. et al. Uniaxial-Oriented Chiral Perovskite for Flexible Full-Stokes Polarimeter. Adv. Mater. 36, 2400493 (2024).
Kresse, G. & Hafner, J. Norm-conserving and ultrasoft pseudopotentials for first-row and transition elements. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 6, 8245 (1994).
Blöchl, P. E. Projector augmented-wave method. Phys. Rev. B 50, 17953 (1994).
Perdew, J. P. et al. Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 136406 (2008).
Grimme, S., Antony, J., Ehrlich, S. & Krieg, H. A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu. J. Chem. Phys. 132 (2010).
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Ziang Lu and Prof. Xiang Zhou from the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences of Wuhan University for their assistance with CD measurement. The authors also thank the Core Facility of Wuhan University. S.H. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52273194) and the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (Grant No. JCYJ20240813111407011, JCYJ20250604122538010).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.X. and S.H. conceived the project. J.X. grew the materials, fabricated devices and carried out XRD, SEM, AFM measurements. J.X. and Y.L. analyzed the data. J.L. performed TA and CTA. L.F. performed DFT theoretical calculation. Y.L. and J.X. wrote the manuscript. Y.L., H.Z., Q.L., Y.W., X.M., S.P., J.H., J.W. and S.H. revised the manuscript. S.H. supervised the project. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Communications thanks Jingying Wang and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Source data
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Xiao, J., Li, Y., Liu, Y. et al. Precision engineering chiral interfaces for efficient spin injection in metal halide heterostructures. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69455-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69455-4
