Strong Light-Matter Coupling in Lead Halide Perovskite Quantum Dot Solids

Strong coupling between lead halide perovskite materials and optical resonators enables both polaritonic control of the photophysical properties of these emerging semiconductors and the observation of fundamental physical phenomena. However, the difficulty in achieving optical-quality perovskite quantum dot (PQD) films showing well-defined excitonic transitions has prevented the study of strong light-matter coupling in these materials, central to the field of optoelectronics. Herein we demonstrate the formation at room temperature of multiple cavity exciton-polaritons in metallic resonators embedding highly transparent Cesium Lead Bromide quantum dot (CsPbBr3-QD) solids, revealed by a significant reconfiguration of the absorption and emission properties of the system. Our results indicate that the effects of biexciton interaction or large polaron formation, frequently invoked to explain the properties of PQDs, are seemingly absent or compensated by other more conspicuous effects in the CsPbBr3-QD optical cavity. We observe that strong coupling enables a significant reduction of the photoemission line width, as well as the ultrafast modulation of the optical absorption, controllable by means of the excitation fluence. We find that the interplay of the polariton states with the large dark state reservoir plays a decisive role in determining the dynamics of the emission and transient absorption properties of the hybridized light-quantum dot solid system. Our results should serve as the basis for future investigations of PQD solids as polaritonic materials.

Mapping Defect Relaxation in Quantum Dot Solids upon In Situ Heating

Epitaxially connected quantum dot solids have emerged as an interesting class of quantum confined materials with the potential for highly tunable electronic structures. Realization of the predicted emergent electronic properties has remained elusive due in part to defective interdot epitaxial connections. Thermal annealing has shown potential to eliminate such defects, but a direct understanding of this mechanism hinges on determining the nature of defects in the connections and how they respond to heating. Here, we use in situ heating in the scanning transmission electron microscope to probe the effect of heating on distinct defect types. We apply a real space, local strain mapping technique, which allows us to identify tensile and shear strain in the atomic lattice, highlighting tensile, shear, and bending defects in interdot connections. We also track the out-of-plane orientation of individual QDs and infer the prevalence of out-of-plane twisting and bending defects as a function of annealing. We find that tensile and shear defects are fully relaxed upon mild thermal annealing, while bending defects persist. Additionally, out-of-plane orientation tracking reveals an increase in correctly oriented QDs, pointing to a relaxation of either twisting defects or out-of-plane bending defects. While bending defects remain, highlighting the need for further study of orientational ordering during the preattachment phase of superlattice formation, these atomic-scale insights show that annealing can effectively eliminate tensile and shear defects, a promising step toward delocalization of charge carriers and tunable electronic properties.

Orientational Disorder in Epitaxially Connected Quantum Dot Solids

Periodic arrays of strongly coupled colloidal quantum dots (QDs) may enable unprecedented control of electronic band structure through manipulation of QD size, shape, composition, spacing, and assembly geometry. This includes the possibilities of precisely engineered bandgaps and charge carrier mobilities, as well as remarkable behaviors such as metal-insulator transitions, massless carriers, and topological states. However, experimental realization of these theoretically predicted electronic structures is presently limited by structural disorder. Here, we use aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy to precisely quantify the orientational disorder of epitaxially connected QD films. In spite of coherent atomic connectivity between nearest neighbor QDs, we find misalignment persists with a standard deviation of 1.9°, resulting in significant bending strain localized to the adjoining necks. We observe and quantify a range of out-of-plane particle orientations over thousands of QDs and correlate the in-plane and out-of-plane misalignments, finding QDs misoriented out-of-plane display a statistically greater misalignment with respect to their in-plane neighbors as well. Using the bond orientational order metric ψ₄, we characterize the 4-fold symmetry and introduce a quantification of the local superlattice (SL) orientation. This enables direct comparison between local orientational order in the SL and atomic lattice (AL). We find significantly larger variations in the SL orientation and a statistically robust but locally highly variable correlation between the orientations of the two differently scaled lattices. Distinct AL and SL behaviors are observed about a grain boundary, with a sharp boundary in the AL orientations, but a more smooth transition in the SL, facilitated by lattice deformation between the neighboring grains. Coupling between the AL and SL is a fundamental driver of film growth, and these results suggest nontrivial underlying mechanics, implying that simplified models of epitaxial attachment may be insufficient to understand QD growth and disorder when oriented attachment and superlattice growth occur in concert.

Propagation of Structural Disorder in Epitaxially Connected Quantum Dot Solids from Atomic to Micron Scale

Epitaxially connected superlattices of self-assembled colloidal quantum dots present a promising route toward exquisite control of electronic structure through precise hierarchical structuring across multiple length scales. Here, we uncover propagation of disorder as an essential feature in these systems, which intimately connects order at the atomic, superlattice, and grain scales. Accessing theoretically predicted exotic electronic states and highly tunable minibands will therefore require detailed understanding of the subtle interplay between local and long-range structure. To that end, we developed analytical methods to quantitatively characterize the propagating disorder in terms of a real paracrystal model and directly observe the dramatic impact of angstrom scale translational disorder on structural correlations at hundreds of nanometers. Using this framework, we discover improved order accompanies increasing sample thickness and identify the substantial effect of small fractions of missing epitaxial bonds on statistical disorder. These results have significant experimental and theoretical implications for the elusive goals of long-range carrier delocalization and true miniband formation.

Direct Imaging of Long-Range Exciton Transport in Quantum Dot Superlattices by Ultrafast Microscopy

Long-range charge and exciton transport in quantum dot (QD) solids is a crucial challenge in utilizing QDs for optoelectronic applications. Here, we present a direct visualization of exciton diffusion in highly ordered CdSe QDs superlattices by mapping exciton population using ultrafast transient absorption microscopy. A temporal resolution of ∼200 fs and a spatial precision of ∼50 nm of this technique provide a direct assessment of the upper limit for exciton transport in QD solids. An exciton diffusion length of ∼125 nm has been visualized in the 3 ns experimental time window and an exciton diffusion coefficient of (2.5 ± 0.2) × 10(-2) cm(2) s(-1) has been measured for superlattices constructed from 3.6 nm CdSe QDs with center-to-center distance of 6.7 nm. The measured exciton diffusion constant is in good agreement with Förster resonance energy transfer theory. We have found that exciton diffusion is greatly enhanced in the superlattices over the disordered films with an order of magnitude higher diffusion coefficient, pointing toward the role of disorder in limiting transport. This study provides important understandings on energy transport mechanisms in both the spatial and temporal domains in QD solids.