Superior Optical Properties of Perovskite Nanocrystals as Single Photon Emitters

The power conversion efficiency of photovoltaic devices based on semiconductor perovskites has reached ~20% after just several years of research efforts. With concomitant discoveries of other promising applications in lasers, light-emitting diodes and photodetectors, it is natural to anticipate what further excitements these exotic perovskites could bring about. Here we report on the observation of single photon emission from single CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) synthesized from a facile colloidal approach. Compared with traditional metal-chalcogenide NCs, these CsPbBr3 NCs exhibit nearly two orders of magnitude increase in their absorption cross sections at similar emission colors. Moreover, the radiative lifetime of CsPbBr3 NCs is greatly shortened at both room and cryogenic temperatures to favor an extremely fast output of single photons. The above findings have not only added a novel member to the perovskite family for the integration into current optoelectronic architectures, but also paved the way towards quantum-light applications of single perovskite NCs in various quantum information processing schemes.