Regulating Exciton–Phonon Coupling to Achieve a Near-Unity Photoluminescence Quantum Yield in One-Dimensional Hybrid Metal Halides

Low-dimensional hybrid metal halides are emerging as a highly promising class of single-component white-emitting materials for their unique broadband emission from self-trapped excitons (STEs). Despite substantial progress in the development of these metal halides, many challenges remain to be addressed to obtain a better fundamental understanding of the structure–property relationship and realize the full potentials of this class of materials. Here, via pressure regulation, a near 100% photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of broadband emission is achieved in a corrugated 1D hybrid metal halide C₅N₂H₁₆Pb₂Br₆, which possesses a highly distorted structure with an initial PLQY of 10%. Compression reduces the overlap between STE states and ground state, leading to a suppressed phonon-assisted non-radiative decay. The PL evolution is systematically demonstrated to be controlled by the pressure-regulated exciton–phonon coupling which can be quantified using Huang–Rhys factor S. Detailed studies of the S-PLQY relation for a series of 1D hybrid metal halides (C₅N₂H₁₆Pb₂Br₆, C₄N₂H₁₄PbBr₄, C₆N₂H₁₆PbBr₄, and (C₆N₂H₁₆)₃Pb₂Br₁₀) reveal a quantitative structure–property relationship that regulating S factor toward 28 leads to the maximum emission.

Luo, H., Guo, S., Zhang, Y., Bu, K., Lin, H., Wang, Y., Yin, Y., Zhang, D., Jin, S., Zhang, W., Yang, W., Ma, B., Lü, X., Regulating Exciton–Phonon Coupling to Achieve a Near-Unity Photoluminescence Quantum Yield in One-Dimensional Hybrid Metal Halides. Adv. Sci. 2021, 2100786. abstract