A. C. Ferreira, A. Létoublon, S. Paofai, S. Raymond, C. Ecolivet, B. Rufflé, S. Cordier, C. Katan, M. I. Saidaminov, A. A. Zhumekenov, O. M. Bakr, J. Even, and P. Bourges
Much recent attention has been devoted towards unraveling the microscopic optoelectronic properties of hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites. Here we investigate by coherent inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy and Brillouin light scattering, low frequency acoustic phonons in four different hybrid perovskite single crystals : MAPbBr3, FAPbBr3, MAPbI3, and α−FAPbI3 (MA : methylammonium, FA : formamidinium). We report a complete set of elastic constants characterized by a very soft shear modulus C44. Further, a tendency towards an incipient ferroelastic transition is observed in FAPbBr3. We observe a systematic lower sound group velocity in the technologically important iodide-based compounds compared to the bromide-based ones. The findings suggest that low thermal conductivity and hot phonon bottleneck phenomena are expected to be enhanced by low elastic stiffness, particularly in the case of the ultrasoft α−FAPbI3.
