Non-Traditional Positively-Biased Narrow-Band Perovskite Single-Crystal Photodetectors Enabled by Interfacial Engineering

The positive bias in theory narrows down the depletion region and thus results in significant charge injection, which should be detrimental to charge generation and collection performance for traditional photodetectors. Here, instead, it is found that the external quantum efficiency (EQE) is increased by more than 50 times when the photodetector is positively biased. A positive bias of +6 V drives ion migration of Br⁻ and Cs⁺ towards the anode and cathode, respectively, leading to self-doping within bulk single crystals to form an advantageous p-i-n junction for better charge collection in the devices. Meanwhile, the injected holes are allowed to tunnel through the cesium lead bromide/fullerene interface to reach the cathode which also significantly contributes to the enhancement of EQE in the forward-biased devices. The positively-biased narrow-band (full width at half maxima (FWHM) = 16 nm) photodetectors exhibit a specific detectivity of 6.5 × 10¹⁰ Jones at 550 nm, along with the −3 dB cutoff frequency of 2776 Hz. By manipulating charge injection and ion migration using interfacial engineering, a class of non-traditional, positively-biased, and highly narrow-band photodetectors is demonstrated, which offers an alternative design strategy for imaging, biosensing, automatic control, and optical communication.