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Computational Molecular Science (2019) Life and Times of an Electron in a Perovskite Solar Cell Prof. Aron Walsh Imperial College London, UK Yonsei University, Korea Materials Design Group: https://wmd-group.github.io @lonepair

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Life of a Photoexcited Electron* *In a semiconductor host, where the terms electron and (charge) carrier are used

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“Total” Crystal Hamiltonian Crystals are not frozen in space and time. Should consider vibrational and electronic excitations Source: D. C. Wallace – Statistical Physics of Crystals and Liquids (2002) Crystal Potential static model Electronic Excitations Harmonic Phonons vibrations Anharmonic Interactions Electron-Phonon Coupling

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Exciting Perovskites A. (Rapid) Theory of Crystal Dynamics B. Vibrations of CH3 NH3 PbI3 C. What Size is an Electron? D. Research Challenges

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Why Phonons? Collective vibrational excitations of crystals: N atoms vibrate as 3N phonon modes, ⍵(q) Essential for: • Free energy of crystals • Vibrational spectra • Thermal expansion • Phase transformations • Heat flow • Electrical conductivity Crystal momentum

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Theory of Crystal Dynamics Anharmonicity All higher-order terms Harmonic Phonons Ionic Forces = 0 at equilibrium Crystal potential expanded with ion displacements (r) Crystal Potential static model Born and Huang, Dynamical Theory of Crystal Lattices (1958) Collective vibrational excitations of crystals: N atoms vibrate as 3N phonon modes, ⍵(q)

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Harmonic Approximation (HA) U(Q) Q Real PES HA ! " = 1 2 &"' ( " = − *! " *" = −&" • Analytic solutions • 3N normal modes w/ frequency ω i • ": normal mode coordinate Energy Force Schematic courtesy of Dr Jonathan Skelton (now University of Manchester) Weak anharmonicity

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“Jacob’s Ladder” of Crystal Dynamics Frequency shifts temperature & pressure Variety of anharmonic techniques available – alternative is (large-scale) molecular dynamics Mode lifetimes linewidths & conductivity Thermal expansion Grüneisen parameters Phonon frequencies thermodynamics & spectra Phonopy, Phon, and built into most DFT packages Phono3py ShengBTE AlmaBTE Alamode, D3q, SCALID TDEP, Phono4py… machine learning assisted Many other codes available

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Organic-Inorganic Phonon Challenges J. K. Bristow et al, PCCP 18, 29316 (2016) Complex structures with large vibrational range

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Issue Cause Solution Large unit cells 100–1000s of atoms Large computers / interaction cutoff radii Missing H No information on H location from XRD Electron counting and chemical knowledge Defective structures Missing ligands or clusters (up to 25%) Explicit simulation of defect processes Symmetry breaking Average structure from X- ray diffraction (with no H) Check phonons for imaginary modes Unphysical dynamics Large phonon range (0– 3500 cm-1) can result in slow MD equilibration Avoid initialisation from random displacements Organic-Inorganic Phonon Challenges

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Exciting Perovskites A. (Rapid) Theory of Crystal Dynamics B. Vibrations of CH3 NH3 PbI3 C. What Size is an Electron? D. Research Challenges

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Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Perovskites Brief History (1958) – Photoconductivity in CsPbI3 (Møller) (1978) – Synthesis of CH3 NH3 PbI3 (Weber) (1994) – Metallic transition in CH3 NH3 SnI3 (Mitzi) (2009) – Perovskite dye cell (Miyasaka) (2012) – Planar thin-film solar cell (Snaith) Inorganic CsPbI3 Hybrid CH3 NH3 PbI3 or MAPI

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Phonon Modes of CH3 NH3 PbI3 High-frequency: confined CH3 NH3 + modes

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Phonon Modes of CH3 NH3 PbI3 Low-frequency: PbI3 - and coupled modes Unit: cm-1

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Harmonic Phonon Dispersion, ω(#) Gold-Parker et al, PNAS 115, 11905 (2018) Calculated acoustic modes of orthorhombic CH3 NH3 PbI3 (Phonopy; PBEsol) Measured inelastic neutron scattering on single crystals (led by Mike Toney, SLAC) Excellent agreement for energies and dispersion Calculations can be compared to IR/Raman spectra (q~0) or X-ray/neutron scattering 3 meV = 0.7 THz = 24 cm-1

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Anharmonic Phonon Lifetimes, ω(#, τ) Phonons are quasiparticles with individual lifetimes determined by their scattering rates Gold-Parker et al, PNAS 115, 11905 (2018) Lifetime and linewidth Theory (Phono3py; PBEsol) gives upper limit of lifetime as only 3-phonon scattering is included (assumed to be dominant) Acoustic phonon linewidth: From Γ to X point

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Ultra-Low Thermal Conductivity Heat carrying modes in CH3 NH3 PbI3 involve Pb-I octahedral network with very short lifetimes Gold-Parker et al, PNAS 115, 11905 (2018) Calculated lattice thermal conductivity (Phono3py; PBEsol) At T = 300 K GaAs: 48 W/m/K CH3 NH3 PbI3 : 0.1 W/m/K Integrated thermal conductivity 20 meV = 4.8 THz = 160 cm-1

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Low-Frequency Dielectric Response High-frequency from QSGW+SOC Low-frequency from harmonic phonons (DFT/PBEsol) Low-frequency optic phonon modes Sum over phonon modes λ with Born charges Z

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Exciting Perovskites A. (Rapid) Theory of Crystal Dynamics B. Vibrations of CH3 NH3 PbI3 C. What Size is an Electron? D. Research Challenges

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Carrier Generation and Cooling Long-lived hot carriers upon photoexcitation Effective mass and heat diffusion models: Frost, Whalley, Walsh, ACS Energy Letters 2, 2647 (2017)

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Nature of Electron and Hole Carriers Charge carriers in crystals are quasiparticles defined by electron-lattice interaction: polarons Effective mass (Bohr) radius r ~ 10 nm

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Nature of Electron and Hole Carriers Charge carriers in crystals are quasiparticles defined by electron-lattice interaction: polarons Large polaron radius r ~ 2.5 nm

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Nature of Electron and Hole Carriers Fröhlich electron-lattice interaction ! = 1 2 1 %& − 1 %( ) ℏ+ 2,+ ℏ - . GaAs = 0.1 CdTe = 0.3 CH3 NH3 PbI3 = 2.4 SrTiO3 = 3.8 Intermediate coupling regime: Large polaron Variational solution for Feynman polaron model rP = 4 unit cells mP * = 0.2 me (+30%) µP < 200 cm2V-1s-1 APL Materials 2, 081506 (2014); ACS Energy Lett. 2, 2647 (2017)

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Transport of Electron and Hole Carriers Reality: non-parabolic band structure, anharmonic vibrations, multi-mode dielectric response Lucy D. Whalley et al, Phys. Rev. B 99, 085207 (2019) Electronic band structure Predicted carrier mobility Mobility limited by Fröhlich scattering https://github.com/jarvist/PolaronMobility.jl T = 300 K Parabolic m* regime

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Exciting Perovskites A. (Rapid) Theory of Crystal Dynamics B. Vibrations of CH3 NH3 PbI3 C. Life of an Electron D. Research Challenges

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Semiconductors with a Twist Current-voltage hysteresis Snaith et al, JPCL (2014); Unger et al, EES (2014) Rapid chemical conversion between halides Pellet et al, CoM (2015); Eperon et al, MH (2015) Photoinduced phase separation Hoke et al, CS (2015); Yoon et al, ACS-EL (2016) Electric-field induced phase separation Xiao et al, NatM (2015); Yuan et al, AEM (2016) Photo-stimulated ionic conductivity Yang et al, AChemie (2015); Kim et al, NatM (2018)

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Electron-Hole Recombination Conversion efficiencies of solar cells are limited by non-radiative trap-mediated recombination Band (large polaron) electron

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Electron-Hole Recombination Conversion efficiencies of solar cells are limited by non-radiative trap-mediated recombination Electron trapped at point defect

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Shockley & Read, Phys. Rev. 87, 835 (1952); Hall, Phys. Rev. 87, 387 (1952) Electron-Hole Recombination Conversion efficiencies of solar cells are limited by non-radiative trap-mediated recombination Beyond SRH: defects levels are not fixed, but vary with the charge state. Recombination is a multi-level phonon-emission process Valence band Conduction band Trap level Shockley-Read- Hall (SRH) process 1st order kinetics k SRH ∝ [e]

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Structural relaxation (electron-phonon coupling) is a critical component of carrier capture Q = configuration coordinate [change in local structure with charge state] Huang & Rhys, Proc. RS 204, 406 (1950); Henry & Lang, Phys. Rev. 15, 989 (1977) Radiative (weak coupling) Defect luminescence Defect in charge states E1 and E2 Non-Radiative (strong coupling) Phonon emission Electron-Hole Recombination

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Requires: (a) defect concentrations, trap levels, configurational coordinates of each charge First-Principles Carrier Capture Rates [Point defect review] Ji-Sang Park et al, Nat. Rev. Mater. 3, 195 (2018) Chemical Potential Limits github.com/jbuckeridge/cplap Self-consistent Fermi Level github.com/jbuckeridge/sc-fermi Equilibrium defect populations

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First-Principles Carrier Capture Rates Group developers: Dr Sunghyun Kim Dr Samantha Hood Defectq=0 + eCB - Defectq=-1 Requires: (b) vibrational wavefunctions and electron-phonon interaction strength github.com/WMD-group/CarrierCapture.jl Anharmonicity Included Solve Schrödinger equation for each potential energy surface Following harmonic approach of Alkauskas et al, Phys. Rev. B 90, 075202 (2014) Static coupling approximation

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Redox Processes in Metal Halides 2X# + h& → X( # V centre X# + X) # + h& → X( # H centre Whalley, Crespo-Otero, and Walsh, ACS Energy Letters 2, 2713 (2017) Hole trapping in V and H centres studied in metal halides since the 1950s Predicted excited-states TDDFT (PBE0 with SOC) in DALTON2016 On-going work: Carrier trapping rates by Lucy Whalley (PV-CDT)

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Conclusion Electrons in semiconductors are under the influence of lattice vibrations. It is often necessary to go beyond the harmonic approx. especially for “soft” halide perovskites. Next step: ab initio prediction of solar cell efficiency limits Project Collaborators: Sunghyun Kim, Jonathan Skelton, Jarvist Frost, Lucy Whalley, Samantha Hood; Ji-Sang Park; Mark van Schilfgaarde (Kings); Sam Stranks (Cambridge); Mike Toney (SLAC) Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/aronwalsh