Slow carrier relaxation in tin-based perovskite nanocrystals

The conversion efficiency of solar energy in semiconductors is fundamentally limited by ultrafast hot-carrier relaxation processes, and slowing down these processes is critical for improved energy harvesting. Here we report formamidinium tin iodide (FASnI3) nanocrystals where quantum confinement effects yield an evolution from a continuous band structure to separate energy states with decreasing nanocrystal size, as observed by transient absorption spectroscopy. The appearance of separate energy levels slows down the relaxation of hot carriers by two orders of magnitude at low injected carrier densities (<1 carrier pair per nanoparticle). The observed build up time of the ground-state bleach at the band edge is two orders of magnitude slower in FASnI3 nanocrystals than in lead halide perovskite bulk and nanocrystals, which we attribute to a phonon bottleneck effect. Our results highlight the promise of lead-free perovskite nanocrystals for high-efficiency photovoltaic applications operating above the Shockley–Queisser limit.