Organic–inorganic
halide perovskites have emerged as promising
materials for next-generation solar cells. In nanostructured form
also, these materials are excellent candidates for optoelectronic
applications such as lasers and light-emitting diodes for displays
and lighting. While great progress has been achieved so far in optimizing
the intrinsic photophysical properties of perovskite nanocrystals
(NCs), in working optoelectronic devices, external factors, such as
the effects of conducting environment and the applied electric field
on exciton generation and photon emission, have been largely unexplored.
Here, we use NCs of the all-inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 dispersed polyvinyl carbazole, a hole-conductor, and in poly(methyl
methacrylate), an insulator, to examine the effects of applied electric
field and conductivity of the matrix on the perovskite photophysics
at the single-particle level. We found that the conducting environment
causes a significant decrease of photoluminescence (PL) brightness
of individual NCs due the appearance of intermediate-intensity emitting
states with significantly shortened lifetime. Applied electric field
has a similar effect and, in addition, causes a nonlinear spectral
shift of the PL maxima, a combination of linear and quadratic Stark
effects caused by environment-induced polarity and field-related polarizability.
The environment and electric-field effects are explained by ionization
of the NCs through hole transfer and emission of the resulting negatively
charged excitons.