Evidence of Phonon-Assisted Auger Recombination and Multiple Exciton Generation in Semiconductor Quantum Dots Revealed by Temperature-Dependent Phonon Dynamics

Auger processes, multiple exciton generation, and Auger recombination, provide and disturb a potential route to increase solar cell efficiencies by creating multiple charge carriers, respectively. Physical mechanisms of the Auger processes can be deduced from the temperature dependence. Our real-time ab initio simulation found logarithmic temperature dependence of the Auger rates in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), which agrees well with the recent experimental observations. This anomalous temperature dependence is not only determined by static electronic structures of the QDs depending on temperature, but also attributed to dynamical electron-phonon couplings, directly demonstrating that the Auger processes are actually induced by the electron-phonon couplings and can be controlled by phonon modes. Our findings suggest that high-frequency and broad phonon modes of a QD including the surface ligands dictate efficient Auger dynamics in a QD.