Superior Optical Properties of Perovskite Nanocrystals as Single Photon Emitters

The power conversion efficiency of photovoltaic devices based on semiconductor perovskites has reached ∼20% after just several years of research efforts. With concomitant discoveries of other promising applications in lasers, light-emitting diodes, and photodetectors, it is natural to anticipate what further excitement these exotic perovskites could bring about. Here we report on the observation of single photon emission from single CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) synthesized from a facile colloidal approach. Compared with traditional metal-chalcogenide NCs, these CsPbBr3 NCs exhibit nearly 2 orders of magnitude increase in their absorption cross sections at similar emission colors. Moreover, the radiative lifetime of CsPbBr3 NCs is greatly shortened at both room and cryogenic temperatures to favor an extremely fast output of single photons. The above superior optical properties have paved the way toward quantum-light applications of perovskite NCs in various quantum information processing schemes.