Photo-electro-striction in halide perovskite semiconductors

MAPbI(3), MAPbBr(3), and CsPbBr3 are excellent halide perovskite semiconductors with super long carrier diffusion length, long minority carrier lifetime, and large light absorption coefficient. Compared with the small intrinsic electrostriction, photocarriers induce a large photostriction in the surface layer. Furthermore, an electric field can efficiently separate the light excited electron-hole pairs, enhance photocarriers diffusion, and finally increase the crystal expansion, i.e., photo-electro-striction. For each crystal under 30V/mm and in light with 450nm wavelength and 840 mW/cm(2), the photo-electro-striction is over four times of the pure electrostriction and is larger than the sum of photostriction and electrostriction. Most importantly, MAPbI(3) single crystal shows a large photostriction of similar to 0.35% and the photo-electro-striction of similar to 0.64%. This work proves a very large photo-electro-striction as a result of the strong coupling among photocarriers, electric fields, and crystal lattices, which is important to develop semiconductor devices. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.

Automated summary

MAPbI(3), MAPbBr(3), and CsPbBr3 are excellent halide perovskite semiconductors with super long carrier diffusion length, long minority carrier lifetime, and large light absorption coefficient. Photocarriers can induce strong photostriction and an electric field can enhance photocarrier diffusion and crystal expansion. The research proves the importance of the strong coupling among photocarriers, electric fields, and crystal lattices for developing semiconductor devices.