Observation of 3D Biexcitons in Pristine-Quality CH3 NH3 PbBr3 Single Crystals

Adv Mater. 2022 Mar;34(12):e2107882. doi: 10.1002/adma.202107882. Epub 2022 Feb 11.

Abstract

Halide perovskites (HPs) are fascinating materials whose optoelectronic properties are arguably excitonic. In the HP family, biexcitons are known to exist only in low dimensions where exciton-exciton binding is strongly enhanced by quantum and dielectric confinements. In this paper, however, it is shown that they indeed do exist in 3D bulk CH3 NH3 PbBr3 (MAPbBr3 ) single crystals if the pristine crystal quality is ensured for subtle binding of two excitons. The existence of biexcitons is clearly evidenced below 30 K with a binding energy of ≈3.9 ± 0.3 meV according to i) exciton-biexciton population dynamics, ii) giant resonant two-photon excitation of biexcitons, iii) inverted Boltzmann-type spectral feature, and iv) zero degree of circular polarization in the biexciton photoluminescence. Because of the polariton effect, the two-photon resonance occurs at the excited biexciton state from which longitudinal-transverse splitting is calculated to be 3.7 meV. The discovery of the 3D biexcitons underscores the very quality of HP crystals for generating various many-body excitonic phases in MAPbBr3 and its analogues toward the improved understanding of their fundamental properties and highly efficient optoelectronic applications.

Keywords: 3D halide perovskites; biexcitons; longitudinal-transverse splitting; perovskite single crystals; resonant two-photon excitation.