Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Center for Computational Materials Science, working with an international team of physicists, have found that nanocrystals made of cesium lead halide perovskites (CsPbX3), is the first discovered material which the ground exciton state is "bright," making it an attractive candidate for more efficient solid-state lasers and light emitting diodes (LEDs).
The work focused on lead halide perovskites with three different compositions, including chlorine, bromine, and iodine. Nanocrystals made of these compounds and their alloys can be tuned to emit light at wavelengths that span the entire visible range, while retaining the fast light emission that gives them their superior performance.
Because in perovskite nanocrystals the lowest energy exciton is bright, the time it takes for the electron and hole to recombine and emit light, known as their radiative lifetime, is about 20 times faster than conventional materials at room temperature and 1000 times faster at cryogenic temperatures.
It is a common fact that quantum-dot based LEDs, or QLEDs, can suffer from "droop," or reduced efficiency, at high pumping intensity due to processes that dissipate the energy of excitons before they have time to emit light. The decreased radiative lifetime should make it possible for LEDs based on these perovskites to use all of the energy input to create light before it is dissipated through slower processes.
"The increased rate of light emission of these materials holds great promise for various technological applications that rely on LEDs and lasers," the researchers said. "In principle, the 20 times shorter lifetime could therefore lead to 20 times more intense LEDs and lasers." The power of a laser depends on the gain of the material it is made of, and this gain is proportional to the radiative emission rate.
Communication in free space using visible light, which makes it possible to transmit information in tight beams for long distances without fiber optic or copper cables, would also benefit from the increased light emission rates. "The maximum bandwidth of the communication system is limited by the rate at which the LEDs can turn on and off, and the shorter radiative lifetime translates directly into faster switching and therefore a higher data transmission rate," says the team.
