Revealing the Exciton Fine Structure in Lead Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals

Lead-halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) are attractive nano-building blocks for photovoltaics and optoelectronic devices as well as quantum light sources. Such developments require a better knowledge of the fundamental electronic and optical properties of the band-edge exciton, whose fine structure has long been debated. In this review, we give an overview of recent magneto-optical spectroscopic studies revealing the entire excitonic fine structure and relaxation mechanisms in these materials, using a single-NC approach to get rid of their inhomogeneities in morphology and crystal structure. We highlight the prominent role of the electron-hole exchange interaction in the order and splitting of the bright triplet and dark singlet exciton sublevels and discuss the effects of size, shape anisotropy and dielectric screening on the fine structure. The spectral and temporal manifestations of thermal mixing between bright and dark excitons allows extracting the specific nature and strength of the exciton–phonon coupling, which provides an explanation for their remarkably bright photoluminescence at low temperature although the ground exciton state is optically inactive. We also decipher the spectroscopic characteristics of other charge complexes whose recombination contributes to photoluminescence. With the rich knowledge gained from these experiments, we provide some perspectives on perovskite NCs as quantum light sources.