Spatially Resolved Analysis of Defect Annihilation and Recovery Dynamics in Metal Halide Perovskite Single Crystals

The spectacular advances in efficiency of optoelectronic devices based on lead-halide perovskites have been accompanied by detailed structural and optical studies regarding the instability presented by these materials, which constitute their main bottleneck for commercialization. Following a pump and probe scheme in a laser scanning confocal microscope, we resolve the photoinduced emission activation/deactivation dynamics in CH3NH3PbBr3 single crystals with millisecond and sub-micrometer resolution. This is complemented with a study of spectral variations and interpreted in the framework of light-induced ion migration and associated defect passivation. Our results point to the presence of photoinduced structural changes accompanying the migration of ions.