Laser cooling of organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites

Optical irradiation with suitable energy can cool solids, a phenomenon known as optical refrigeration, first proposed in 1929 and experimentally achieved in ytterbium-doped glasses in 1995. Since then, considerable progress has been made in various rare earth element-doped materials, with a recent record of cooling to 91 K directly from ambient temperatures. For practical use and to suit future applications of optical refrigeration, the discovery of materials with facile and scalable synthesis and high cooling power density will be required. Herein we present the realization of a net cooling of 23.0 K in micrometre-thick 3D CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 (MAPbI 3) and 58.7 K in exfoliated 2D (C 6 H 5 C 2 H 4 NH 3) 2 PbI 4 (PhEPbI 4) perovskite crystals directly from room temperature. We found that the perovskite crystals exhibit strong photoluminescence upconversion and near unity external quantum efficiency, properties that are responsible for the realization of net laser cooling. Our findings indicate that solution-processed perovskite thin films may be a highly suitable candidate for constructing integrated optical cooler devices. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.