Unveiling the Impact of Organic Spacer Cations on Auger Recombination in Layered Halide Perovskites

Abstract A library of large organic cation spacers is available for engineering the performance of layered two‐dimensional (2D) halide perovskite devices. Despite extensive photophysics studies, there remains a research gap over the structure‐function relations in 2D perovskites, especially the underlying factors influencing the Auger recombination (AR) process. Herein, the contributions of exciton binding energy, exciton‐phonon coupling, and defects/film morphology to the AR process in 2D perovskites are examined. Phenyl‐alkyl‐ammonium cations with different lengths of attached alkyl groups, commonly used in blue light‐emitting diodes, are investigated. The findings reveal an order of magnitude higher threshold carrier density for the AR onset as well as a reduced AR in cations with longer alkyl chain length. Although possessing similar exciton binding energies, the exciton‐phonon coupling strength is found to play a major role in reducing the AR rate, with a smaller contribution from the defect states/film morphology. The findings can help provide further guidance on organic spacer cation engineering for highly efficient 2D perovskite light emitters.