Temperature dependence of the band gap of perovskite semiconductor compound CsSnI3

The temperature dependence of the bandgap of perovskite semiconductor compound CsSnI3 is determined by measuring excitonic emission at low photoexcitation in a temperature range from 9 to 300 K. The bandgap increases linearly as the lattice temperature increases with a linear coefficient of 0.35 meV K-1. This behavior is distinctly different than that in most of tetrahedral semiconductors. First-principles simulation is employed to predict the bandgap change with the rigid change of lattice parameters under a quasi-harmonic approximation. It is justified that the thermal contribution dominates to the bandgap variation with temperature, while the direct contribution of electron-phonon interaction is conjectured to be negligible likely due to the unusual large electron effective mass for this material. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3638699]