Correlation between Single-Photon Emission and Size of Cesium Lead Bromide Perovskite Nanocrystals

Emission photon statistics of semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs), including lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs), are important fundamental and practical optical properties. Single QDs exhibit high-probability single-photon emission owing to the efficient Auger recombination between generated excitons. Because the recombination rate depends on QD size, single-photon emission probability should be size-dependent. Previous studies have researched QDs smaller than their exciton Bohr diameters (twice the Bohr radius of excitons). Here, we investigated the relationship between the single-photon emission behavior and size of CsPbBr₃ PNCs to elucidate their size threshold. Simultaneous single-nanocrystal spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy observations on single PNCs with approximately 5-25 nm edge length showed that those smaller than approximately 10 nm, which had size-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectral shifts, exhibited high-probability single-photon emissions, which decreased linearly with PNC volume. Novel single-photon emission, size, and PL peak correlations of PNCs are important for understanding the relationship between single-photon emission and quantum confinement.