Transient circular dichroism and exciton spin dynamics in all-inorganic halide perovskites

All-inorganic metal halides perovskites (CsPbX(3), X = Br or Cl) show strong excitonic and spin-orbital coupling effects, underpinning spin-selective excitonic transitions and therefore exhibiting great promise for spintronics and quantum-optics applications. Here we report spin-dependent optical nonlinearities in CsPbX(3) single crystals by using ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy. Many-body interactions between spin-polarized excitons act like a pseudo-magnetic field and thus lift the degeneracy of spin states resulting in a photoinduced circular dichroism. Such spontaneous spin splitting between “spin-up” and “spin-down” excitons can be several tens of milli-electron volts under intense excitations. The exciton spin relaxation time is ~20 picoseconds at very low pump fluence, the longest reported in the metal halides perovskites family at room temperature. The dominant spin-flip mechanism is attributed to the electron-hole exchange interactions. Our results provide essential understandings towards realizing practical spintronics applications of perovskite semiconductors.