Femtosecond excitonic relaxation dynamics of perovskite on mesoporous films of Al₂O₃ and NiO nanoparticles

The excitonic relaxation dynamics of perovskite adsorbed on mesoporous thin films of Al₂O₃ and NiO upon excitation at 450nm were investigated with femtosecond optical gating of photoluminescence (PL) via up-conversion. The temporal profiles of emission observed in spectral region 670-810nm were described satisfactorily with a composite consecutive kinetic model and three transient components representing one hot and two cold excitonic relaxations. All observed relaxation dynamics depend on the emission wavelength, showing a systematic time-amplitude correlation for all three components. When the NiO film was employed, we observed an extent of relaxation proceeding through the non-emissive surface state larger than through the direct electronic relaxation channel, which quenches the PL intensity more effectively than on the Al₂O₃ film. We conclude that perovskite is an effective hole carrier in a p-type electrode for NiO-based perovskite solar cells showing great performance. Femtosecond optical gating (FOG) technique was employed to investigate the excitonic relaxation mechanism in a NiO-supported p-type perovskite. The effect of photoluminescence quenching and the excellent photovoltaic performance were rationalized based on this measurement.