High-quality metal halide perovskite single crystals have low defect densities and excellent photophysical properties, yet thin films are the most sought after material geometry for optoelectronic devices. Perovskite single-crystal thin films (SCTFs) would be highly desirable for high-performance devices, but their growth remains challenging, particularly for inorganic metal halide perovskites. Herein, we report the facile vapor-phase epitaxial growth of cesium lead bromide perovskite (CsPbBr) continuous SCTFs with controllable micrometer thickness, as well as nanoplate arrays, on traditional oxide perovskite SrTiO(100) substrates. Heteroepitaxial single-crystal growth is enabled by the serendipitous incommensurate lattice match between these two perovskites, and overcoming the limitation of island-forming Volmer-Weber crystal growth is critical for growing large-area continuous thin films. Time-resolved photoluminescence, transient reflection spectroscopy, and electrical transport measurements show that the CsPbBr epitaxial thin film has a slow charge carrier recombination rate, low surface recombination velocity (10 cm s), and low defect density of 10 cm, which are comparable to those of CsPbBr single crystals. This work suggests a general approach using oxide perovskites as substrates for heteroepitaxial growth of halide perovskites. The high-quality halide perovskite SCTFs epitaxially integrated with multifunctional oxide perovskites could open up opportunities for a variety of high-performance optoelectronics devices.

All-inorganic cesium lead iodide (CsPbI3) perovskite has improved thermal stability over the organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites and a suitable bandgap for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications, but it is thermodynamically unstable at room temperature and has multiple structural polymorphs. Here, we show that the use of long-chain ammonium additives during thin film deposition as surface capping ligands results in the stabilization of metastable bulk CsPbI3 perovskite phases without alloying mixed cations or anions into the perovskite lattice. Moreover, two different metastable CsPbI3 perovskite polymorphs in the cubic (α-CsPbI3) and the much less common orthorhombic (β-CsPbI3) structures can be directly synthesized in a one-step spin coating film deposition by using oleylammonium or phenylethyl­ammonium additives, respectively, and both phases are stable at room temperature for months. Time-resolved photoluminescence and photoluminescence quenching experiments show that the photoexcited species in the stabilized orthorhombic CsPbI3 thin film are mainly free carriers under solar illumination with a carrier lifetime of ∼50 ns and carrier diffusion length on the order of ∼100 nm, which implies efficient carrier transport within the film despite the presence of surface ligands. Our results provide a new chemical strategy to synthesize metastable all-inorganic CsPbI3 perovskites, which, together with the good photophysical properties, will open them up for applications in photovoltaic and other optoelectronic devices.

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Current understanding of the effects of various A-site cations on the photophysical properties of halide perovskites (APbI3) is limited by the compositional tunability. Here we report the synthesis and characterization of colloidal nanoplates of a series of 2D Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) perovskites (HA)2(A)­Pb2I7 (HA = n-hexylammonium) with seven small and large A-site cations to reveal the size effects of such A cations. Absorbance and photoluminescence (PL) measurements show a clear parabolic trend of the optical band gap versus the A cation size, with methylammonium and formamidinium near the bottom. This band gap shifting is attributed to the changing chemical pressure inside the A-site cavity templating the Pb–I framework. PL quantum yield and time-resolved PL measurements show the effect of A cation size on the PL efficiencies and carrier lifetimes. This fundamental investigation can inform the choices of A-site cations that can be incorporated into halide perovskite materials for optoelectronic applications.

Triple sum-frequency (TSF) spectroscopy measures multidimensional spectra by resonantly exciting multiple quantum coherences of vibrational and electronic states. In this work we demonstrate pump-TSF-probe spectroscopy in which a pump excites a sample and some time later three additional electric fields generate a probe field which is measured. We demonstrate pump-TSF-probe spectroscopy on polycrystalline, smooth, thin films and spiral nanostructures of both MoS2 and WS2. The pump-TSF-probe spectra are qualitatively similar to the more conventional transient-reflectance spectra. While transient-reflectance sensitivity suffers under low surface coverage, pump-TSF-probe sensitivity is independent of the sample coverage and nanostructure morphologies. Our results demonstrate that pump-TSF-probe is a valuable methodology for studying microscopic material systems.

Metal halide perovskites are an intriguing class of semiconductor materials being explored for their linear and non-linear optical, and potentially ferroelectric properties. In particular, layered two-dimensional Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) halide perovskites have shown non-linear optoelectronic properties. Optical second harmonic generation (SHG) is commonly used to screen for non-centrosymmetric and ferroelectric materials, however, SHG measurements of perovskites are complicated by their intense multiphoton photoluminescence (mPL) which can be mistaken for SHG signal. In this work, we introduce multidimensional harmonic generation as a method to eliminate the complications caused by mPL. By scanning and correlating both excitation and emission frequencies, we un-ambiguously assess whether a material supports SHG by examining if an emission feature scales as twice the excitation frequency. Careful multidimensional harmonic generation measurements of a series of n=2 and n=3 RP perovskites reveal that, contrary to previous belief, n-butylammonium (BA) RP perovskites display no SHG, thus they have inversion symmetry; but RP perovskites with phenylethylammonium (PEA) and 2-thiophenemethylammonium (TPMA) spacer cations display SHG. Multidimensional harmonic generation is also able to confirm the SHG and thus non-centrosymmetry of a recently reported ferroelectric RP perovskite even in the presence of an obscuring mPL background. This work establishes multidimensional harmonic generation as a definitive method to measure the SHG properties of materials and demonstrates that tuning organic cations can allow the design of new non-centrosymmetric or even ferroelectric RP perovskites. File list (2) download file view on ChemRxiv paper.pdf (2.91 MiB) download file view on ChemRxiv SI.pdf (16.17 MiB)

Triple sum-frequency (TSF) spectroscopy is a recently developed methodology that enables collection of multidimensional spectra by resonantly exciting multiple quantum coherences of vibrational and electronic states. This work reports the first application of TSF to the electronic states of semiconductors. Two independently tunable ultrafast pulses excite the A, B, and C features of a MoS thin film. The measured TSF spectrum differs markedly from absorption and second harmonic generation spectra. The differences arise because of the relative importance of transition moments and the joint density of states (JDOS). We develop a simple model and globally fit the absorption and harmonic generation spectra to extract the JDOS and the transition moments from these spectra. Our results validate previous assignments of the C feature to a large JDOS created by band nesting.

In the field of supramolecular chemistry, host–guest systems have been extensively explored to encapsulate a wide range of substrates, owing to emerging functionalities in nanoconfined space that cannot be achieved in dilute solutions. However, host–guest chemistry is still limited to encapsulation of small guests. Herein, we construct a water-soluble metallo-supramolecular hexagonal prism with a large hydrophobic cavity by anchoring multiple polyethylene glycol chains onto the building blocks. Then, assembled prisms are able to encapsulate quantum dots (QDs) with diameters of less than 5.0 nm. Furthermore, we find that the supramolecular cage around each QD strongly modifies the photophysics of the QD by universally increasing the rates of QD relaxation processes via ultrafast electron and vibrational energy transfer. Taken together, these efforts expand the scope of substrates in host–guest systems and provide a new approach to tune the optical properties of QDs.