White-Light Emission in Hybrid Perovskite Materials

Hybrid perovskites, comprising inorganic metal halide frameworks interleaved with organic cations, have emerged as single‐component broadband light emitters capable of producing white light without the need for multiple dopants or phosphors. Their tunable crystal dimensionality—from three‐dimensional networks to two‐dimensional sheets, one‐dimensional chains or zero‐dimensional clusters—enables control over exciton confinement, lattice distortion and carrier–phonon coupling. Broadband emission typically arises from self‐trapped excitons or defect‐related states that span a wide spectral range, yielding warm or cool white tones with high colour rendering indices. These materials combine solution processability with variable bandgaps, offering low‐cost, scalable routes to solid‐state lighting, backlight displays and optical communication devices. Ongoing efforts focus on molecular design of organic spacers, defect engineering and structural modulation to optimise photoluminescence efficiency, stability and chromaticity.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have introduced atom‐substituting strategies within layered perovskites to promote the formation of self‐trapped excitons. By incorporating halogen‐substituted phenyl ammonium molecules, researchers achieved stronger Coulombic interactions that facilitate exciton localisation and broadband emission, yielding photoluminescence quantum yields exceeding 30% and colour‐rendering indices near 90.

Work on hydrogen‐bonding modulation demonstrated that locally collective interactions between urea‐amide cations and lead bromide octahedra can be tuned to alter crystal connectivity. This approach yielded zero‐dimensional single crystals with isolated octahedra and warm white emission whose quantum efficiency was quintuple that of analogous one‐dimensional counterparts, highlighting the power of supramolecular chemistry to control emission pathways.

A foundational breakthrough employed one‐dimensional organic lead bromide chains surrounded by organic cations to form core–shell quantum wires. Strong quantum confinement led to self‐trapped excited states and bluish white emission with quantum efficiencies around 20% in single crystals, establishing the paradigm that low‐dimensional confinement can drive efficient broadband luminescence.

White-Light Emission in Hybrid Perovskite Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in white-light emission in hybrid perovskite materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Hybrid perovskite: A class of materials with an ABX₃ structure in which inorganic metal halide octahedra (BX₆) are interleaved with organic A‐site cations, combining ionic and covalent motifs.

Self‐trapped exciton (STE): An exciton localised by lattice distortion, leading to broad, red‐shifted emission due to strong electron–phonon coupling.

Photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY): The ratio of emitted photons to absorbed photons, expressing the efficiency of luminescence.

Ruddlesden–Popper perovskite: A layered perovskite structure with alternating inorganic slabs and organic spacer layers, denoted A′₂An₋₁BnX₃n₊₁.

Charge‐transfer exciton (CTE): An excitonic state in which electron and hole reside on adjacent layers or domains, often yielding broad emission and long lifetimes.

Defect state: An electronic state within the bandgap arising from vacancies, interstitials or impurities that can trap carriers and mediate broadband emission.

References

1. One-dimensional organic lead halide perovskites with efficient bluish white-light emission. Nature Communications (2017).
2. Structural origins of broadband emission from layered Pb–Br hybrid perovskites. Chemical Science (2017).
3. Locally collective hydrogen bonding isolates lead octahedra for white emission improvement. Nature Communications (2019).
4. Modulation of Broadband Emissions in Two-Dimensional ⟨100⟩-Oriented Ruddlesden–Popper Hybrid Perovskites. ACS Energy Letters (2020).
5. Molecular engineering towards efficientwhite-light-emitting perovskite. Nature Communications (2021).
6. The Origin of Broad Emission in ⟨100⟩ Two-Dimensional Perovskites: Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Processes. ACS Energy Letters (2022).