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Lead halide perovskites have attracted extensive attention in recent years because of their excellent photoelectronic properties, such as high absorption coefficients, carrier mobilities, defect tolerances, and photoluminescence efficiencies. However, a key issue hindering their commercial application is the toxicity of lead. Replacing lead with other nontoxic elements is a promising solution to this problem. Considering their atomic radii, relative atomic masses, and electron arrangements, perovskites based on Sn, Bi, Sb, and other elements instead of Pb have been widely synthesized. Here, we summarized the growth methods, photoelectric properties, and device applications of these lead-free perovskites. First, we introduced several common growth methods for lead-free perovskites, including solution methods, solid-state reaction, and chemical vapor deposition methods. Second, we discussed the photoelectric properties and methods for optimizing these properties of lead-free perovskites with different structure dimensions. Finally, the applications of lead-free perovskites in solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and X-ray detectors were examined. This review also provides suggestions for future research on lead-free perovskites.

Perovskite materials, especially metal halide perovskites, exhibit excellent properties, such as large optical coefficients, high carrier mobilities, long carrier lifetimes, tunable resistivities, large X-ray attenuation coefficients, and simple processing techniques. In recent decades, perovskites have attracted significant attention in the photoelectric field due to their versatile utility in solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, X/γ-ray detectors, and lasing. However, the wide applicability of perovskites highly depends on the quality of perovskite crystals and films. Thus far, several perovskite growth technologies and methods have emerged. Therefore, this review classified and summarized the main methods that have been employed to achieve perovskite growth in recent years, including the solution temperature-lowering (STL) method, inverse temperature crystallization (ITC), anti-solvent vapor-assisted crystallization (AVC), spin coating, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Through analysis and summary, it has been determined that the STL, ITC, and AVC methods are mainly used to grow high-quality perovskite single crystals. While the spin-coating method has a significant advantage in the preparation of perovskite films, the CVD method is propitious in the fabrication of a variety of morphologies of micro/nano perovskite materials. We hope that this review can be a comprehensive reference for scientific researchers to prepare perovskite-related materials.