Two Regimes of Carrier Diffusion in Vapor-Deposited Lead-Halide Perovskites

Abstract

Metal halide perovskites are attractive materials for the realization of cheap and effective solar cells, thin film transistors, and light emitters. Carrier diffusion at high excitations, however, is poorly addressed in perovskites, even though it governs the diffusion length and determines the efficiency of photonic devices. To fully understand the dependence of diffusion length on carrier density, we performed direct and independent measurements of the carrier diffusion coefficient and recombination rate in several methylammonium lead-halide perovskite layers by applying the light-induced transient grating technique. We demonstrate the existence of two distinct carrier diffusion regimes within the density range of 1018–1020 cm–3. In the perovskite films of high compositional quality, diffusion is governed by a bandlike transport of free carriers. The diffusivity is high (0.28–0.7 cm2/s) in these samples, even at low carrier density, and further increases with excitation due to carrier degeneracy. The op...