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Highly narrowband perovskite single-crystal photodetectors enabled by surface-charge recombination

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 679–686 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Organolead trihalide perovskite is an emerging low-cost, solution-processable material with a tunable bandgap from the violet to near-infrared, which has attracted a great deal of interest for applications in high-performance optoelectronic devices. Here, we present hybrid perovskite single-crystal photodetectors that have a very narrow spectral response with a full-width at half-maximum of <20 nm. The response spectra are continuously tuned from blue to red by changing the halide composition and thus the bandgap of the single crystals synthesized by solution processes. The narrowband photodetection can be explained by the strong surface-charge recombination of the excess carriers close to the crystal surfaces generated by short-wavelength light. The excess carriers generated by below-bandgap excitation locate away from the surfaces and can be much more efficiently collected by the electrodes, assisted by the applied electric field. This provides a new design paradigm for a narrowband photodetector with broad applications where background noise emission needs to be suppressed.

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Figure 1: Properties of hybrid perovskite single crystals.
Figure 2: Device structure and narrowband photodetection.
Figure 3: Narrowband photodetection model and mechanism study.
Figure 4: Device performance of narrowband photodetectors.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (award no. HDTRA1-14-1-0030) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR, award no. N000141210556).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, 68588, Nebraska, USA

    Yanjun Fang, Qingfeng Dong, Yuchuan Shao, Yongbo Yuan & Jinsong Huang

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  1. Yanjun Fang
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  2. Qingfeng Dong
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  3. Yuchuan Shao
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  4. Yongbo Yuan
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Contributions

J.H. conceived the idea. J.H. and Y.F. designed the experiments. Y.F. carried out the material synthesis, device fabrication and characterization with the assistance of Q.D. and Y.Y. Y.F. and Y.S. performed the device modelling. J.H. and Y.F. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jinsong Huang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Fang, Y., Dong, Q., Shao, Y. et al. Highly narrowband perovskite single-crystal photodetectors enabled by surface-charge recombination. Nature Photon 9, 679–686 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.156

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