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Room-temperature Superfluorescence in Hybrid Perovskites

Mar 31, 2022
Image by Ella Maru Studio.
Image by Ella Maru Studio.

Semiconducting perovskites that exhibit superfluorescence at room temperature do so through built-in thermal “shock absorbers” which protect dipoles within the material from thermal interference. Superfluorescence is a macroscopic quantum phase transition in which a population of tiny light emitting units known as dipoles form  a  giant  quantum  dipole  and  simultaneously  radiate  a  burst  of  photons. Superfluorescence  normally  requires  cryogenic  temperatures  to  be  observed, because the dipoles move out of phase too quickly to form a collectively coherent state. Here room-temperature superfluorescence was reported in hybrid perovskite thin films. This surprising discovery shows that in this material platform, there exists an extremely strong immunity to electronic dephasing due to thermal processes. The mechanism involved in this macroscopic quantum phase transition was explored and  how  and  why  materials  like  perovskites  exhibit  macroscopic  quantum coherence at high temperatures was explained. It was proposed that the formation of  large  polarons  in  hybrid  perovskites  provide  a  quantum  analogue  of  vibration isolation  to  electronic  excitation  and  protects  it  against  dephasing  even  at  room temperature. Understanding the origins of sustained quantum coherence and the superfluorescence phase transition at high temperatures can provide guidance to design  systems  for  emerging  quantum  information  technologies  and  to  realize similar high-temperature macroscopic quantum phenomena in tailored materials.

U.S. National Science Foundation and NSF DMREF, Materials for Our Future

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Award No. 2015237. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation. This site is maintained collaboratively by principal investigators with NSF DMREF awards, independent of the NSF.