Liquid-like dielectric response is an origin of long polaron lifetime exceeding 10 $μ$s in lead bromide perovskites

Lead halide perovskites are promising materials for optoelectronic applications because of their exceptional performances in carrier lifetime and diffusion length; however, the microscopic origins of their unique characteristics remain elusive. The organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites show unique dielectric functions, i.e., ferroelectric-like phonon responses in the 0.1–10 THz region and liquid-like rotational relaxation in the 1–100 GHz range. To reveal the role of the dielectric responses is of primal importance because the dielectric screening is a key to understanding the optoelectronic properties governed by polarons in the perovskites. Here, we conducted comparative studies of broadband dielectric spectroscopy on both all-inorganic CsPbBr₃ and organic–inorganic hybrid (CH₃NH₃)PbBr₃ single crystals to uncover the origin of the liquid-like dielectric relaxation in the 1–100 GHz range. We confirmed the absence of the dielectric response in the range of 10⁶–10¹⁰ Hz in CsPbBr₃, which was clearly present in the hybrid (CH₃NH₃)PbBr₃. This suggests that the response is almost purely due to the rotational motions of the organic dipoles in the hybrid perovskites. We evaluated the lifetimes of the polarons using surface-free transient photoluminescence. The lifetime in CsPbBr₃ was up to 1.6 µs, while the lifetime in (CH₃NH₃)PbBr₃ was 18 µs. The lifetime in the hybrid (CH₃NH₃)PbBr₃ was significantly longer than in CsPbBr₃, also confirmed by transient infrared spectroscopy. We concluded that the liquid-like dielectric response inhibits polaron recombination due to the efficient separation of opposite charges by the additional dynamic disorder.