The complex refractive indices of formamidinium cesium lead mixed-halide [FA0.83Cs0.17Pb(I1– xBrx)3] perovskite thin films of compositions ranging from x = 0 to 0.4, with both flat and wrinkle-textured surface topographies, are reported. The films are characterized using a combination of variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry and spectral transmittance in the wavelength range of 190 nm to 850 nm. Optical constants, film thicknesses and roughness layers are obtained point-by-point by minimizing a global error function, without using optical dispersion models, and including topographical information supplied by a laser confocal microscope.

We develop a band-fluctuations model which describes the absorption coefficient in the fundamental absorption region for direct and indirect electronic transitions in disordered semiconductor materials. The model accurately describes both the Urbach tail and absorption edge regions observed in such materials near the mobility edge in a single equation with only three fitting parameters. An asymptotic analysis leads to the universally observed exponential tail below the bandgap energy and to the absorption edge model at zero Kelvin above it, for either direct or indirect electronic transitions. The latter feature allows the discrimination between the absorption edge and absorption tails, thus yielding more accurate bandgap values when fitting optical absorption data. We examine the general character of the model using a dimensionless joint density of states formalism with a quantitative a...

The complex refractive indices of formamidinium cesium lead mixed-halide [FA0.83Cs0.17Pb(I1– xBrx)3] perovskite thin films of compositions ranging from x = 0 to 0.4, with both flat and wrinkle-textured surface topographies, are reported. The films are characterized using a combination of variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry and spectral transmittance in the wavelength range of 190 nm to 850 nm.

We report the complex refractive index of methylammonium lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3) perovskite thin films obtained by means of variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry and transmittance/reflectance spectrophotometry in the wavelength range of 190 nm to 2500 nm. The film thickness and roughness layer thickness are determined by minimizing a global unbiased estimator in the region where the spectrophotometry and ellipsometry spectra overlap. We then determine the optical bandgap and Urbach energy from the absorption coefficient, by means of a fundamental absorption model based on band fluctuations in direct semiconductors. This model merges both the Urbach tail and the absorption edge regions in a single equation. In this way, we increase the fitting region and extend the conventional (αℏω)2-plot method to obtain accurate bandgap values. © 2017 Author(s).

The authors acknowledge funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for funding of the Young Investigator Group Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells within the program “Materialforschung für die Energiewende” (grant no. 03SF0540), the Helmholtz Association within the HySPRINT Innovation lab project, and the HyPerCells joint Graduate School. This research was supported by the joint agreement between the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and FONDECYT (National Fund for Scientific, Technological Development and Technological Innovation) under the agreements 57508544 DAAD and 423-2019-FONDECYT. Further support has been provided by the PUCP vice chancellorship for research (VRI, project no. CAP-2019-3-0041/702). The authors thank Thomas Lußky for technical support, Bor Li for part of the sample preparation, and Norbert Koch, David Cahen, Isaac Balberg and Norbert N...

We demonstrate that the modulated surface photovoltage spectroscopy (modulated SPS) technique can be applied to investigate interface states in the bandgap, i.e. interface passivation, of crystalline silicon coated with a downshift layer such as hydrogenated aluminum nitride with embedded terbium ions by suppressing straylight with a cut-off filter. Different hydrogen contents influence the surface photovoltage spectra at photon energies below the bandgap of crystalline silicon. Modulated SPS reveals that at higher hydrogen content there is a lower signal and, thus, a lower density of surface defect states. Our experiments show that modulated SPS can become a powerful tool for characterizing defect states at interfaces which cannot be easily studied by other methods. © 2021 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.