No Arabic abstract
Much recent attention has been devoted towards unravelling the microscopic optoelectronic properties of hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (HOP). Here we investigate by coherent inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy and Brillouin light scattering, low frequency acoustic phonons in four different hybrid perovskite single crystals: MAPbBr$_3$, FAPbBr$_3$, MAPbI$_3$ and $alpha$-FAPbI$_3$ (MA: methylammonium, FA: formamidinium). We report a complete set of elastic constants caracterized by a very soft shear modulus C$_{44}$. Further, a tendency towards an incipient ferroelastic transition is observed in FAPbBr$_3$. We observe a systematic lower sound group velocity in the technologically important iodide-based compounds compared to the bromide-based ones. The findings suggest that low thermal conductivity and hot phonon bottleneck phenomena are expected to be enhanced by low elastic stiffness, particularly in the case of the ultrasoft $alpha$-FAPbI$_3$.
Excitation localization involving dynamic nanoscale distortions is a central aspect of photocatalysis, quantum materials and molecular optoelectronics. Experimental characterization of such distortions requires techniques sensitive to the formation of point-defect-like local structural rearrangements in real time. Here, we visualize excitation-induced strain fields in a prototypical member of the lead halide perovskites via femtosecond resolution diffuse x-ray scattering measurements. This enables momentum-resolved phonon spectroscopy of the locally-distorted structure and reveals radially-expanding nanometer-scale elastic strain fields associated with the formation and relaxation of polarons in photoexcited perovskites. Quantitative estimates of the magnitude and the shape of this polaronic distortion are obtained, providing direct insights into the debated dynamic structural distortions in these materials. Optical pump-probe reflection spectroscopy corroborates these results and shows how these large polaronic distortions transiently modify the carrier effective mass, providing a unified picture of the coupled structural and electronic dynamics that underlie the unique optoelectronic functionality of the hybrid perovskites.
The acoustic phonons in the organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites have been reported to have anomalously short lifetimes over a large part of the Brillouin zone. The resulting shortened mean free paths of the phonons have been implicated as the origin of the low thermal conductivity. We apply neutron spectroscopy to show that the same acoustic phonon energy linewidth broadening (corresponding to shortened lifetimes) occurs in the fully inorganic CsPbBr$_{3}$ by comparing the results on the organic-inorganic CH$_{3}$NH$_{3}$PbCl$_{3}$. We investigate the critical dynamics near the three zone boundaries of the cubic $Pmoverline{3}m$ Brillouin zone of CsPbBr$_{3}$ and find energy and momentum broadened dynamics at momentum points where the Cs-site ($A$-site) motions contribute to the cross section. Neutron diffraction is used to confirm that both the Cs and Br sites have unusually large thermal displacements with an anisotropy that mirrors the low temperature structural distortions. The presence of an organic molecule is not necessary to disrupt the low-energy acoustic phonons at momentum transfers located away from the zone center in the lead halide perovskites and such damping may be driven by the large displacements or possibly disorder on the $A$ site.
By means of non-resonant Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations, we measure and assign the vibrational spectrum of two distinct two-dimensional lead-iodide perovskite derivatives. These two samples are selected in order to probe the effects of the organic cation on lattice dynamics. One templating cation is composed of a phenyl-substituted ammonium derivative, while the other contains a linear alkyl group. We find that modes that directly involve the organic cation are more prevalent in the phenyl-substituted derivative. Comparison of the temperature dependence of the Raman spectra reveals differences in the nature of dynamic disorder, with a strong dependence on the molecular nature of the organic moiety.
Behaving like atomically-precise two-dimensional quantum wells with non-negligible dielectric contrast, the layered HOIPs have strong electronic interactions leading to tightly bound excitons with binding energies on the order of 500 meV. These strong interactions suggest the possibility of larger excitonic complexes like trions and biexcitons, which are hard to study numerically due to the complexity of the layered HOIPs. Here, we propose and parameterize a model Hamiltonian for excitonic complexes in layered HOIPs and we study the correlated eigenfunctions of trions and biexcitons using a combination of diffusion Monte Carlo and very large variational calculations with explicitly correlated Gaussian basis functions. Binding energies and spatial structures of these complexes are presented as a function of the layer thickness. The trion and biexciton of the thinnest layered HOIP have binding energies of 35 meV and 44 meV, respectively, whereas a single exfoliated layer is predicted to have trions and biexcitons with equal binding enegies of 48 meV. We compare our findings to available experimental data and to that of other quasi-two-dimensional materials.
Hybrid halide perovskite semiconductors exhibit complex, dynamical disorder while also harboring properties ideal for optoelectronic applications that include photovoltaics. However, these materials are structurally and compositionally distinct from traditional compound semiconductors composed of tetrahedrally-coordinated elements with an average valence electron count of silicon. As discussed here, the additional dynamic degrees of freedom of hybrid halide perovskites underlie many of their potentially transformative physical properties. Neutron scattering and spectroscopy studies of the atomic dynamics of these materials have yielded significant insights to the functional properties. Specifically, inelastic neutron scattering has been used to elucidate the phonon band structure, and quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) has revealed the nature of the uncorrelated dynamics pertaining to molecular reorientations. Understanding the dynamics of these complex semiconductors has elucidated the temperature-dependent phase stability and origins of the defect-tolerant electronic transport from the highly polarizable dielectric response. Furthermore, the dynamic degrees of freedom of the hybrid perovskites provides additional opportunities for application engineering and innovation.