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Research into perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) has uncovered interesting properties compared to their bulk counterparts, including tunable optical properties due to size‐dependent quantum confinement effect (QCE). More recently, smaller PNCs with even stronger QCE have been discovered, such as perovskite magic sized clusters (PMSCs) and ligand passivated PbX₂metal halide molecular clusters (MHMCs) analogous to perovskites.

This review aims to present recent data comparing and contrasting the optical and structural properties of PQDs, PMSCs, and MHMCs, where CsPbBr₃PQDs have first excitonic absorption around 520 nm, the corresponding PMSCS have absorption around 420 nm, and ligand passivated MHMCs absorb around 400 nm.

Compared to normal perovskite quantum dots (PQDs), these clusters exhibit both a much bluer optical absorption and emission and larger surface‐to‐volume (S/V) ratio. Due to their larger S/V ratio, the clusters tend to have more surface defects that require more effective passivation for stability.

Recent study of novel clusters has led to better understanding of their properties. The sharper optical bands of clusters indicate relatively narrow or single size distribution, which, in conjunction with their blue absorption and emission, makes them potentially attractive for applications in fields such as blue single photon emission.

 

Na-doped BiFeO₃demonstrates an enhanced p-type behavior compared to p-type BiFeO₃prepared without extrinsic dopants, and Na-doped BiFeO₃can serve as a photocathode for solar O₂reduction to H₂O₂when coupled with Ag nanoparticle catalysts.

 

Exciton dynamics o perovskite nanoclusters has been investigated or the rst time using emtosecond transient absorption (TA) and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) spectroscopy. The TA results show two photoinduced absorption signals at 420 and 461 nm and a photoinduced bleach (PB) signal at 448 nm. The analysis o the PB recovery kinetic decay and kinetic model uncovered multiple processes contributing to electron−hole recombination. The ast component (∼8 ps) is attributed to vibrational relaxation within the initial excited state, and the medium component (∼60 ps) is attributed to shallow carrier trapping. The slow component is attributed to deep carrier trapping rom the initial conduction band edge (∼666 ps) and the shallow trap state (∼40 ps). The TRPL reveals longer time dynamics, with modeled lietimes o 6.6 and 93 ns attributed to recombination through the deep trap state and direct band edge recombination, respectively. The signicant role o exciton trapping processes in the dynamics indicates that these highly conned nanoclusters have deect-rich suraces. 

We have synthesized inherently chiral cesium lead halide perovskite magic-sized clusters (PMSCs) and ligand-assisted metal halide molecular clusters (MHMCs) using the achiral ligands octanoic acid (OCA) and octylamine (OCAm). UV–vis electronic absorption was used to confirm characteristic absorption bands while circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy was utilized to determine their chiroptical activity in the 412–419 and 395–405 nm regions, respectively. In contrast, the larger sized counterpart of PMSCs, namely, perovskite quantum dots (PQDs), do not show chirality. The inherent chirality of the clusters is tentatively attributed to a twisted chiral layered structure, defect-induced chiral structure, or twisted Pb–Br octahedra 

Mn²⁺/Cr³⁺codoped Cs₂AgInCl₆double perovskite were synthesizedviaa facile hydrothermal method, which exhibits two photoluminescence bands with a wide emission switch ranging from orange to NIR and the photoluminescence quantum yield of 49.3%.

 

The excited state dynamics of ligand-passivated PbBr2 molecular clusters (MCs) in solution have been investigated for the first time using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The results uncover a transient bleach (TB) feature peaked around 404 nm, matching the ground state electronic absorption band peaked at 404 nm. The TB recovery signal can be fitted with a triple exponential with fast (10 ps), medium (350 ps), and long (1.8 ns) time constants. The medium and long time constants are very similar to those observed in the timeresolved photoluminescence (TRPL) decay monitored at 412 nm. The TB fast component is attributed to vibrational relaxation in the excited electronic state while the medium component with dominant amplitude is attributed to recombination between the relaxed electron and hole. The small amplitude slow component is assigned to electrons in a relatively long-lived excited electronic state, e.g., triplet state, or shallow trap state due to defects. This study provides new insights into the excited state dynamics of metal halide MCs. 

Using ligand exchange on FAPbI3 perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) surface with chiral tridentate L-cysteine (Lcys) ligand, we successfully prepared chiral FAPbI3 PNCs that show circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) (dissymmetry factor; glum = 2.1 × 10−3) in the near-infrared (NIR) region from 700 to 850 nm and a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 81%. The chiral characteristics of FAPbI3 PNCs are ascribed to induction by chiral L/D-cys, and the high PLQY is attributed to the passivation of the PNCs defects with L-cys. Also, effective passivation of defects on the surface of FAPbI3 PNCs by L-cys results in excellent stability toward atmospheric water and oxygen. The conductivity of the L-cys treated FAPbI3 NC films is improved, which is attributed to the partial substitution of L-cys for the insulating long oleyl ligand. The CPL of the L-cys ligand treated FAPbI3 PNCs film retains a glum of −2.7 × 10−4. This study demonstrates a facile yet effective approach to generating chiral PNCs with CPL for NIR photonics applications. 

Hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) is a promising transition metal oxide for various energy conversion and storage applications due to its advantages of low cost, high abundance, and good chemical stability. However, its low carrier mobility and electrical conductivity have hindered the wide application of hematite-based devices. Fundamentally, this is mainly caused by the formation of small polarons, which show conduction through thermally activated hopping. Atomic doping is one of the most promising approaches for improving the electrical conductivity in hematite. However, its impact on the carrier mobility and electrical conductivity of hematite at the atomic level remains to be illusive. In this work, through a kinetic Monte-Carlo sampling approach for diffusion coefficients combined with carrier concentrations computed under charge neutrality conditions, we obtained the electrical conductivity of the doped hematite. We considered the contributions from individual Fe–O layers, given that the in-plane carrier transport dominates. We then studied how different dopants impact the carrier mobility in hematite using Sn, Ti, and Nb as prototypical examples. We found that the carrier mobility change is closely correlated with the local distortion of Fe–Fe pairs, i.e. the more stretched the Fe–Fe pairs are compared to the pristine systems, the lower the carrier mobility will be. Therefore, elements which limit the distortion of Fe–Fe pair distances from pristine are more desired for higher carrier mobility in hematite. The calculated local structure and pair distribution functions of the doped systems have remarkable agreement with the experimental EXAFS measurements on hematite nanowires, which further validates our first-principles predictions. Our work revealed how dopants impact the carrier mobility and electrical conductivity of hematite and provided practical guidelines to experimentalists on the choice of dopants for the optimal electrical conductivity of hematite and the performance of hematite-based devices.