Electrochemistry and Electrochemiluminescence of Organometal Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals in Aqueous Medium.

The redox nature and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of highly crystallized organometal halide perovskite CH3NH3PbBr3 nanocrystals (NCs) in aqueous medium were investigated for the first time. CH3NH3PbBr3 NCs could be electrochemically reduced to negative charge states by injecting electrons into the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals and oxidized to positive charge states by removing electrons from the highest occupied molecular orbitals; charge transfer between NCs with positive and negative charge states could produce ECL. The redox sequence of CH3NH3PbBr3 NCs played an important role in the generation of charge-transfer-mediated ECL; transient ECL could be achieved only by electrochemically reducing positive-charged NCs in an annihilation route. A large redox current was unfavorable for ECL. Charge mobility within CH3NH3PbBr3 NCs had an important effect on ECL intensity in a co-reactant route, which is promising for photovoltaic and optoelectronic device applications. Importantly, the ECL spectra of CH3NH3PbBr3 NCs were almost identical to their photoluminescence spectra, with a maximum emission around 535 nm and full width at half-maximum around 25 nm; this might open a way to obtaining monochromatic ECL using highly crystallized NCs as emitters, which makes them promising for use in color-selective ECL analysis.