Squeezing the Threshold of Metal-Halide Perovskite Micro-Crystal Lasers Grown by Solution Epitaxy

Metal halide perovskite semiconductors have demonstrated remarkable progress not only in photovoltaics and X-ray detection but also in laser technologies. Particularly appealing is the simplicity with which micro-crystallites can be epitaxially grown, thereby forming micro-resonators suitable for lasing. Here, the laser threshold is optimized by selecting excitation laser parameters and by improving material quality. The latter process is conducted for formamidinium lead tribromide, emitting in the green spectral range. Depending on the growth method and parameters, the sizes of the micro-resonators can be tuned between ≈3 and 23 micrometers. Under laser excitation systematically lower thresholds are observed for micro-resonators in the 4–7 micrometer size range, than for larger ones, irrespective of growth method. Among three optimized growth methods, epitaxial growth via antisolvent vapor-assisted crystallization exhibits the smallest threshold powers, indicating the highest material quality. This conclusion is supported by hyperspectral microscopic luminescence imaging and by transient photoluminescence. The best laser structures exhibit record threshold powers for epitaxially grown perovskites, indicating that the selected antisolvent vapor epitaxial growth holds great promises also for other perovskite materials.