Metal-halide
perovskites show excellent properties for photovoltaic
and optoelectronic applications, with power conversion efficiencies
of solar cell and LEDs exceeding 20%. Being solution processed, these
polycrystalline materials likely contain a large density of defects
compared to melt-grown semiconductors. Surprisingly, typical effects
from defects (absorption below the bandgap, low fill factor and open
circuit voltage in devices, strong nonradiative recombination) are
not observed. In this work, we study thin films of metal-halide perovskites
CH3NH3PbX3 (X = Br, I) with ultrafast
multidimensional optical spectroscopy to resolve the dynamics of band
and defect states. We observe a shared ground state between the band-edge
transitions and a continuum of sub-bandgap states, which extends at
least 350 meV below the band edge). We explain the comparatively large
bleaching of the dark sub-bandgap states with oscillator strength
borrowing from the band-edge transition. Our results show that upon
valence to conduction band excitation, such subgap states are instantaneously
bleached for large parts of the carrier lifetime and conversely that
most dark sub-bandgap states can be populated by light excitation.
This observation helps to unravel the photophysical origin of the
unexpected optoelectronic properties of these materials.