Infrared-pump electronic-probe of methylammonium lead iodide reveals electronically decoupled organic and inorganic sublattices

Organic and inorganic sublattice coupling in two-dimensional lead halide perovskites

Two-dimensional layered organic-inorganic halide perovskites have successfully spread to diverse optoelectronic applications. Nevertheless, there remain gaps in our understanding of the interactions between organic and inorganic sublattices that form the foundation of their remarkable properties. Here, we examine these interactions using pump-probe spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Unlike off-resonant pumping, resonant excitation of the organic sublattice alters both the electronic and lattice degrees of freedom within the inorganic sublattice, indicating the existence of electronic coupling. Theoretical simulations verify that the reduced bandgap is likely due to the enhanced distortion index of the inorganic octahedra. Further evidence of the mechanical coupling between these two sublattices is revealed through the slow heat transfer process, where the resultant lattice tensile strain launches coherent longitudinal acoustic phonons. Our findings explicate the intimate electronic and mechanical couplings between the organic and inorganic sublattices, crucial for tailoring the optoelectronic properties of two-dimensional halide perovskites.

Optical spectroscopic detection of Schottky barrier height at a two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenide/metal interface

Atomically thin two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDs) have emerged as semiconductors for next-generation nanoelectronics. As 2D-TMD-based devices typically utilize metals as the contacts, it is crucial to understand the properties of the 2D-TMD/metal interface, including the characteristics of the Schottky barriers formed at the semiconductor-metal junction. Conventional methods for investigating the Schottky barrier height (SBH) at these interfaces predominantly rely on contact-based electrical measurements with complex gating structures. In this study, we introduce an all-optical approach for non-contact measurement of the SBH, utilizing high-quality WS2/Au heterostructures as a model system. Our approach employs a below-bandgap pump to excite hot carriers from the gold into WS2 with varying thicknesses. By monitoring the resultant carrier density changes within the WS2 layers with a broadband probe, we traced the dynamics and magnitude of charge transfer across the interface. A systematic sweep of the pump wavelength enables us to determine the SBH values and unveil an inverse relationship between the SBH and the thickness of the WS2 layers. First-principles calculations reveal the correlation between the probability of injection and the density of states near the conduction band minimum of WS2. The versatile optical methodology for probing TMD/metal interfaces can shed light on the intricate charge transfer characteristics within various 2D heterostructures, facilitating the development of more efficient and scalable nano-electronic and optoelectronic technologies.

Dual-Hyperspectral Optical Pump-Probe Microscopy with Single-Nanosecond Time Resolution

In recent years, optical pump-probe microscopy (PPM) has become a vital technique for spatiotemporally imaging electronic excitations and charge-carrier transport in metals and semiconductors. However, existing methods are limited by mechanical delay lines with a probe time window up to several nanoseconds (ns) or monochromatic pump and probe sources with restricted spectral coverage and temporal resolution, hindering their amenability in studying relatively slow processes. To bridge these gaps, we introduce a dual-hyperspectral PPM setup with a time window spanning from nanoseconds to milliseconds and single-nanosecond resolution. Our method features a wide-field probe tunable from 370 to 1000 nm and a pump spanning from 330 nm to 16 μm. We apply this PPM technique to study various two-dimensional metal-halide perovskites (2D-MHPs) as representative semiconductors by imaging their transient responses near the exciton resonances under both above-band gap electronic pump excitation and below-band gap vibrational pump excitation. The resulting spatially and temporally resolved images reveal insights into heat dissipation, film uniformity, distribution of impurity phases, and film-substrate interfaces. In addition, the single-nanosecond temporal resolution enables the imaging of in-plane strain wave propagation in 2D-MHP single crystals. Our method, which offers extensive spectral tunability and significantly improved time resolution, opens new possibilities for the imaging of charge carriers, heat, and transient phase transformation processes, particularly in materials with spatially varying composition, strain, crystalline structure, and interfaces.

Ultrafast vibrational control of organohalide perovskite optoelectronic devices using vibrationally promoted electronic resonance

Vibrational control (VC) of photochemistry through the optical stimulation of structural dynamics is a nascent concept only recently demonstrated for model molecules in solution. Extending VC to state-of-the-art materials may lead to new applications and improved performance for optoelectronic devices. Metal halide perovskites are promising targets for VC due to their mechanical softness and the rich array of vibrational motions of both their inorganic and organic sublattices. Here, we demonstrate the ultrafast VC of FAPbBr3 perovskite solar cells via intramolecular vibrations of the formamidinium cation using spectroscopic techniques based on vibrationally promoted electronic resonance. The observed short (~300 fs) time window of VC highlights the fast dynamics of coupling between the cation and inorganic sublattice. First-principles modelling reveals that this coupling is mediated by hydrogen bonds that modulate both lead halide lattice and electronic states. Cation dynamics modulating this coupling may suppress non-radiative recombination in perovskites, leading to photovoltaics with reduced voltage losses.

Differentiating Thermal Conductances at Semiconductor Nanocrystal/Ligand and Ligand/Solvent Interfaces in Colloidal Suspensions

Infrared-pump, electronic-probe (IPEP) spectroscopy is used to measure heat flow into and out of CdSe nanocrystals suspended in an organic solvent, where the surface ligands are initially excited with an infrared pump pulse. Subsequently, the heat is transferred from the excited ligands to the nanocrystals and in parallel to the solvent. Parallel heat transfer in opposite directions uniquely enables us to differentiate the thermal conductances at the nanocrystal/ligand and ligand/solvent interfaces. Using a novel solution to the heat diffusion equation, we fit the IPEP data to find that the nanocrystal/ligand conductances range from 88 to 135 MW m^-2 K^-1 and are approximately 1 order of magnitude higher than the ligand/solvent conductances, which range from 7 to 26 MW m^-2 K^-1. Transient nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of nanocrystal suspensions agree with IPEP data and show that ligands bound to the nanocrystal by bidentate bonds have more than twice the per-ligand conductance as those bound by monodentate bonds.

Ultrafast Excitonic Response in Two-Dimensional Hybrid Perovskites Driven by Intense Midinfrared Pulses

Two-dimensional organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites (2DHPs) are natural quantum-well-like materials, in which strong quantum and dielectric confinement effects due to the organic spacers give rise to tightly bound excitons with large binding energy. To examine the mutual interactions between the organic spacer cations and the inorganic charge-residing octahedral framework in 2DHPs, here we perform femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy by direct vibrational pumping of the organic spacers, followed by a visible-to-ultraviolet probe covering their excitonic resonances. Measurements on prototypical lead-bromide based 2DHP compounds, (BA)_{2}PbBr_{4} and (BA)_{2}(FA)Pb_{2}Br_{7} (BA^{+}=butylammonium; FA^{+}=formamidinium), reveal two distinct regimes of the temporal response. The first regime is dominated by a pump-induced transient expansion of the organic spacer layers that reduces the exciton oscillator strength, whereas the second regime arises from pump-induced lattice heating effects primarily associated with a spectral shift of the exciton energy. In addition, vibrational excitation enhances the biexciton emission, which we attribute to a stronger intralayer exciton confinement as well as vibrationally induced exciton detrapping from defect states. Our study provides fundamental insights regarding the impact of organic spacers on excitons in 2DHPs, as well as the excited-state dynamics and vibrational energy dissipation in these structurally diverse materials.

Time-resolved vibrational-pump visible-probe spectroscopy for thermal conductivity measurement of metal-halide perovskites

Understanding thermal transport at the microscale to the nanoscale is crucially important for a wide range of technologies ranging from device thermal management and protection systems to thermal-energy regulation and harvesting. In the past decades, non-contact optical methods, such as time-domain and frequency-domain thermoreflectance, have emerged as extremely powerful and versatile thermal metrological techniques for the measurement of material thermal conductivities. Here, we report the measurement of thermal conductivity of thin films of CH₃NH₃PbI₃ (MAPbI₃), a prototypical metal-halide perovskite, by developing a time-resolved optical technique called vibrational-pump visible-probe (VPVP) spectroscopy. The VPVP technique relies on the direct thermal excitation of MAPbI₃ by femtosecond mid-infrared optical pump pulses that are wavelength-tuned to a vibrational mode of the material, after which the time dependent optical transmittance across the visible range is probed in the ns to the μs time window using a broadband pulsed laser. Using the VPVP method, we determine the thermal conductivities of MAPbI₃ thin films deposited on different substrates. The transducer-free VPVP method reported here is expected to permit spectrally resolving and spatiotemporally imaging of the dynamic lattice temperature variations in organic, polymeric, and hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductors.

Materials, photophysics and device engineering of perovskite light-emitting diodes

Here we provide a comprehensive review of a newly developed lighting technology based on metal halide perovskites (i.e. perovskite light-emitting diodes) encompassing the research endeavours into materials, photophysics and device engineering. At the outset we survey the basic perovskite structures and their various dimensions (namely three-, two- and zero-dimensional perovskites), and demonstrate how the compositional engineering of these structures affects the perovskite light-emitting properties. Next, we turn to the physics underpinning photo- and electroluminescence in these materials through their connection to the fundamental excited states, energy/charge transport processes and radiative and non-radiative decay mechanisms. In the remainder of the review, we focus on the engineering of perovskite light-emitting diodes, including the history of their development as well as an extensive analysis of contemporary strategies for boosting device performance. Key concepts include balancing the electron/hole injection, suppression of parasitic carrier losses, improvement of the photoluminescence quantum yield and enhancement of the light extraction. Overall, this review reflects the current paradigm for perovskite lighting, and is intended to serve as a foundation to materials and device scientists newly working in this field.

Photoinduced Vibrations Drive Ultrafast Structural Distortion in Lead Halide Perovskite

The success of organic–inorganic perovskites in optoelectronics is dictated by the complex interplay between various underlying microscopic phenomena. The structural dynamics of organic cations and the inorganic sublattice after photoexcitation are hypothesized to have a direct effect on the material properties, thereby affecting the overall device performance. Here, we use ultrafast heterodyne-detected two-dimensional (2D) electronic spectroscopy to reveal impulsively excited vibrational modes of methylammonium (MA) lead iodide perovskite, which drive the structural distortion after photoexcitation. Vibrational analysis of the measured data allows us to monitor the time-evolved librational motion of the MA cation along with the vibrational coherences of the inorganic sublattice. Wavelet analysis of the observed vibrational coherences reveals the coherent generation of the librational motion of the MA cation within ∼300 fs complemented with the coherent evolution of the inorganic skeletal motion. To rationalize this observation, we employed the configuration interaction singles (CIS), which support our experimental observations of the coherent generation of librational motions in the MA cation and highlight the importance of the anharmonic interaction between the MA cation and the inorganic sublattice. Moreover, our advanced theoretical calculations predict the transfer of the photoinduced vibrational coherence from the MA cation to the inorganic sublattice, leading to reorganization of the lattice to form a polaronic state with a long lifetime. Our study uncovers the interplay of the organic cation and inorganic sublattice during formation of the polaron, which may lead to novel design principles for the next generation of perovskite solar cell materials.

Halide Perovskites: Thermal Transport and Prospects for Thermoelectricity

The recent re-emergence of halide perovskites has received escalating interest for optoelectronic applications. In addition to photovoltaics, the multifunctional nature of halide perovskites has led to diverse applications. The ultralow thermal conductivity coupled with decent mobility and charge carrier tunability led to the prediction of halide perovskites as a possible contender for future thermoelectrics. Herein, recent advances in thermal transport of halide perovskites and their potentials and challenges for thermoelectrics are reviewed. An overview of the phonon behavior in halide perovskites, as well as the compositional dependency is analyzed. Understanding thermal transport and knowing the thermal conductivity value is crucial for creating effective heat dissipation schemes and determining other thermal-related properties like thermo-optic coefficients, hot-carrier cooling, and thermoelectric efficiency. Recent works on halide perovskite-based thermoelectrics together with theoretical predictions for their future viability are highlighted. Also, progress on modulating halide perovskite-based thermoelectric properties using light and chemical doping is discussed. Finally, strategies to overcome the limiting factors in halide perovskite thermoelectrics and their prospects are emphasized.

Spectroscopic Comparison of Thermal Transport at Organic-Inorganic and Organic-Hybrid Interfaces Using CsPbBr3 and FAPbBr3 (FA = Formamidinium) Perovskite Nanocrystals

Thermal transport across interfaces depends on the matching of vibrational structure at the interface. This work examines the transfer of thermal excitation from an organic ligand coating to either all-inorganic cesium lead tribromide (CsPbBr₃) nanocrystals or hybrid organic-inorganic formamidinium lead tribromide (FAPbBr₃) nanocrystals using selective infrared optical excitation. These two semiconductors are directly compared because they (or similar semiconductors) are currently envisioned as strong candidates in many optoelectronic technologies and they differ due to the presence of an organic or inorganic cation, which introduces substantial differences in the phonon density of states in otherwise quite similar semiconductors. Infrared excitation of C-H vibrations of surface-bound ligands generates a temperature gradient between the organic ligand shell and nanocrystal core, which results in heat flow, measured by probing changes of the semiconductor band gap. Heat transfer to both perovskite compositions of comparable sizes is similar (25-30 ps), due to fast intramolecular vibrational relaxation and similar matching of low-energy phonons with the organic ligand, but FAPbBr₃ samples show a slow bleaching kinetic on the order of 1 ns. This slow, heat-induced change in the semiconductor band gap is attributed not to interfacial heat transfer but instead to thermal equilibration between the organic and inorganic sublattices of FAPbBr₃. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations support the hypothesis that low-energy inorganic sublattice phonon modes are populated initially in the heat transfer process, with a slow thermal population of the higher-energy phonon modes associated primarily with the organic cation. Slow thermal equilibration of FAPbBr₃ is likely to substantially impact the time-dependent response of optoelectronic devices that heat the semiconductor active layer and provide further evidence that the poor bulk thermal transport of hybrid perovskite materials extends to microscopic thermal processes.

Incorporating Large A Cations into Lead Iodide Perovskite Cages: Relaxed Goldschmidt Tolerance Factor and Impact on Exciton-Phonon Interaction

The stability and formation of a perovskite structure is dictated by the Goldschmidt tolerance factor as a general geometric guideline. The tolerance factor has limited the choice of cations (A) in 3D lead iodide perovskites (APbI₃), an intriguing class of semiconductors for high-performance photovoltaics and optoelectronics. Here, we show the tolerance factor requirement is relaxed in 2D Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) perovskites, enabling the incorporation of a variety of larger cations beyond the methylammonium (MA), formamidinium, and cesium ions in the lead iodide perovskite cages for the first time. This is unequivocally confirmed with the single-crystal X-ray structure of newly synthesized guanidinium (GA)-based (n-C₆H₁₃NH₃)₂(GA)Pb₂I₇, which exhibits significantly enlarged and distorted perovskite cage containing sterically constrained GA cation. Structural comparison with (n-C₆H₁₃NH₃)₂(MA)Pb₂I₇ reveals that the structural stabilization originates from the mitigation of strain accumulation and self-adjustable strain-balancing in 2D RP structures. Furthermore, spectroscopic studies show a large A cation significantly influences carrier dynamics and exciton-phonon interactions through modulating the inorganic sublattice. These results enrich the diverse families of perovskite materials, provide new insights into the mechanistic role of A-site cations on their physical properties, and have implications to solar device studies using engineered perovskite thin films incorporating such large organic cations.

Breakdown of the Static Picture of Defect Energetics in Halide Perovskites: The Case of the Br Vacancy in CsPbBr3

We consider the Br vacancy in CsPbBr₃ as a prototype for the impact of structural dynamics on defect energetics in halide perovskites (HaPs). Using first-principles molecular dynamics based on density functional theory, we find that the static picture of defect energetics breaks down; the energy level associated with a Br vacancy is found to be intrinsically dynamic, oscillating by as much as 1 eV on the picosecond time scale at room temperature. These significant energy fluctuations are correlated with the distance between the neighboring Pb atoms across the vacancy and with the electrostatic potential at these Pb atomic sites. We expect this unusually strong coupling of structural dynamics and defect energetics to bear important implications for both experimental and theoretical analyses of defect characteristics in HaPs. It may also hold significant ramifications for carrier transport and defect tolerance in this class of photovoltaic materials.