The Effects of Doping Density and Temperature on the Optoelectronic Properties of Formamidinium Tin Triiodide Thin Films

Optoelectronic properties are unraveled for formamidinium tin triiodide (FASnI3) thin films, whose background hole doping density is varied through SnF2 addition during film fabrication. Monomolecular charge‐carrier recombination exhibits both a dopant‐mediated part that grows linearly with hole doping density and remnant contributions that remain under tin‐enriched processing conditions. At hole densities near 1020 cm−3, a strong Burstein–Moss effect increases absorption onset energies by ≈300 meV beyond the bandgap energy of undoped FASnI3 (shown to be 1.2 eV at 5 K and 1.35 eV at room temperature). At very high doping densities (1020 cm−3), temperature‐dependent measurements indicate that the effective charge‐carrier mobility is suppressed through scattering with ionized dopants. Once the background hole concentration is nearer 1019 cm−3 and below, the charge‐carrier mobility increases with decreasing temperature according to ≈T−1.2, suggesting that it is limited mostly by intrinsic interactions with lattice vibrations. For the lowest doping concentration of 7.2 × 1018 cm−3, charge‐carrier mobilities reach a value of 67 cm2 V−1 s−1 at room temperature and 470 cm2 V−1 s−1 at 50 K. Intraexcitonic transitions observed in the THz‐frequency photoconductivity spectra at 5 K reveal an exciton binding energy of only 3.1 meV for FASnI3, in agreement with the low bandgap energy exhibited by this perovskite. The absorption, photoluminescence, charge‐carrier dynamics, and mobility are investigated in FASnI3 thin films with hole doping densities ranging from 1018 to 1020 cm−3. Doping is found to limit charge recombination and transport only at the highest doping densities. At lower hole densities, FASnI3 displays many characteristics equal to or superior than those of lead‐based analogs and typical low‐bandgap inorganic semiconductors.