Yu Zhi-Gang
ISP/Applied Sciences Laboratory, Washington State University , Spokane, Washington 99202, United States.
J Phys Chem Lett. 2018 Jan 4;9(1):1-7. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b02902. Epub 2017 Dec 14.
Free-carrier absorption (FCA) in a semiconductor provides information about the band on which the free carriers reside, and in the classical limit, follows the ω law with ω being the photon frequency. In hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (HOIPs), the colossal Rashba effect (RE) results in a new band dispersion, characterized by wavevector |k| = k of band extremum and effective mass m*. Here we show that the colossal RE in two-dimensional HOIPs greatly enhances phonon-assisted FCA with a modified frequency dependence and induces a direct transition between the subbands with a resonance at ℏω = 4R ≡ 2ℏk/m*, which, under a magnetic field, exhibits a strong oscillatory magnetic circular dichroism (MCD). The MCD spectrum allows a complete and reliable determination of k and m* for conduction and valence bands in HOIPs and helps reveal the microscopic mechanism of their outstanding photovoltaic performance.