Activation of Self-Trapped Emission in Stable Bismuth-Halide Perovskite by Suppressing Strong Exciton–Phonon Coupling

All-inorganic bismuth-halide perovskites are promising alternatives for lead halide perovskites due to their admirable chemical stability and optoelectronic properties; however, these materials deliver inferior photoluminescence (PL) properties, severely hindering their prospects in lighting applications. Here, a novel air-stable but non-emissive perovskite Rb 3 BiCl 6 is synthesized, and the material is used as a prototype to uncover origin of the poor optical performance in bismuth-halide perovskite. It is found that the extremely strong exciton–phonon interactions with a large coupling constant up to 693 meV leads to the seriously nonradiative recombination, which, however, can be effectively suppressed to 347 meV by introducing Sb 3+ ions. As a result, Sb 3+ -doped Rb 3 BiCl 6 exhibits a stable yellow emission with unprecedented PL quantum yield up to 33.6% from self-trapped excitons. Systematic spectroscopic characterizations and theoretical calculations are carried out to unveil the intriguing photophysical mechanisms. This work reveals the effect of exciton–phonon interaction, that is often underemphasized, on a material's photophysical properties.