Manipulating Photocarrier and Exciton Transport in Hybrid and Molecular Semiconductors

 Excitons represent the electronic excited state of organic semiconductor and many low-dimensional inorganic semiconductors. In solar energy conversion systems, exciton transport affects how fast the charges reach the electrodes thus governs the performance of photovoltaic cells. In optoelectronic applications such as semiconductor lasers and light-emitting diodes, exciton radiative rate determines the efficiency of luminescence in competition to various nonradiative processes. Therefore, understanding how exciton migrates over space as well as its decay dynamics are vital for the design of highly efficient optoelectronic devices. To interrogate these photophysical processes requires experimental tools with simultaneous high temporal and spatial resolution. In this thesis, I introduce two transient imaging systems (photoluminescence imaging with 300 ps time resolution, and transient absorption microscopy with 200 fs time) that are innovative tools to directly probe excited state dynamics and transport in sub-μm domains. The techniques were applied to a type of promising semiconductor, perovskites, including surface-passivated hybrid perovskite and 2D layered perovskites to explore the fundamental mechanisms that affect exciton transport. The fundamental understanding of excitons shed light on the underlying physics such as exciton delocalization, exciton-exciton interaction, and how these properties affected by the static and dynamic disorders of the material. We further demonstrated a novel twisted superlattice using ultrathin perovskites that confines excitons due to increased density of state from the moiré flat bands. In addition, excitons can be accelerated by strongly interacts photons, forming polariton quasiparticles that possess small effective mass. This is demonstrated by coupling 2D layered perovskites to a plasmonic array. We further showcase the formation of bulk polaritons without an external optical cavity in a self-assembled organic aggregate. Experimental investigation into these intriguing phenomena provide an approach to study fundamental processes such as many-body interaction and quantum coherence.