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Lead halide perovskite nanowire lasers with low lasing thresholds and high quality factors

Nature Materials volume 14, pages 636–642 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

The remarkable performance of lead halide perovskites in solar cells can be attributed to the long carrier lifetimes and low non-radiative recombination rates, the same physical properties that are ideal for semiconductor lasers. Here, we show room-temperature and wavelength-tunable lasing from single-crystal lead halide perovskite nanowires with very low lasing thresholds (220 nJ cm−2) and high quality factors (Q ∼ 3,600). The lasing threshold corresponds to a charge carrier density as low as 1.5 × 1016 cm−3. Kinetic analysis based on time-resolved fluorescence reveals little charge carrier trapping in these single-crystal nanowires and gives estimated lasing quantum yields approaching 100%. Such lasing performance, coupled with the facile solution growth of single-crystal nanowires and the broad stoichiometry-dependent tunability of emission colour, makes lead halide perovskites ideal materials for the development of nanophotonics, in parallel with the rapid development in photovoltaics from the same materials.

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Figure 1: Structural characterization of single-crystal CH3NH3PbX3 NWs.
Figure 2: Near-infrared lasing from CH3NH3PbI3 NWs.
Figure 3: Visible lasing from CH3NH3PbBr3 NWs.
Figure 4: Tunable lasing from mixed perovskite NWs.
Figure 5: Emission polarization of the CH3NH3PbI3 NW laser.

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Acknowledgements

X-Y.Z. acknowledges support by the US Department of Energy under grant No. ER46980 for all lasing and photophysical measurements. S.J. acknowledges support by the Department of Energy under grant No. ER46664 for NW synthesis and characterizations. S.J. is also grateful for the support of an NSF Grant (DMR-1106184) that provided the insights for designing the NW synthesis here. H.Z. thanks C. Nelson for help with experimental set-up and data analysis.

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Author notes

  1. Haiming Zhu and Yongping Fu: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    Haiming Zhu, Xiaoxi Wu, Zizhou Gong, Martin V. Gustafsson, M. Tuan Trinh & X-Y. Zhu

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

    Yongping Fu, Fei Meng, Qi Ding & Song Jin

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Contributions

H.Z., Y.F., S.J. and X-Y.Z. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. Y.F., F.M. and Q.D. synthesized and characterized the samples. H.Z., X.W. and Z.G. conducted the optical measurements. M.V.G. helped with metal-coated sample preparation and M.T.T. with experimental set-up for lasing measurement. H.Z. analysed the data and performed the simulation. H.Z., Y.F., S.J. and X-Y.Z. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results, interpreted the findings, and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Song Jin or X-Y. Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Zhu, H., Fu, Y., Meng, F. et al. Lead halide perovskite nanowire lasers with low lasing thresholds and high quality factors. Nature Mater 14, 636–642 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4271

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