Following the emergence of lead halide perovskites (LHPs)
as materials
for efficient solar cells, research has progressed to explore stable,
abundant, and nontoxic alternatives. However, the performance of such
lead-free perovskite-inspired materials (PIMs) still lags significantly
behind that of their LHP counterparts. For bismuth-based PIMs, one
significant reason is a frequently observed ultrafast charge-carrier
localization (or self-trapping), which imposes a fundamental limit
on long-range mobility. Here we report the terahertz (THz) photoconductivity
dynamics in thin films of BiOI and demonstrate a lack of such self-trapping,
with good charge-carrier mobility, reaching ∼3 cm2 V–1 s–1 at 295 K and increasing
gradually to ∼13 cm2 V–1 s–1 at 5 K, indicative of prevailing bandlike transport.
Using a combination of transient photoluminescence and THz- and microwave-conductivity
spectroscopy, we further investigate charge-carrier recombination
processes, revealing charge-specific trapping of electrons at defects
in BiOI over nanoseconds and low bimolecular band-to-band recombination.
Subject to the development of passivation protocols, BiOI thus emerges
as a superior light-harvesting semiconductor among the family of bismuth-based
semiconductors.