title: High-efficiency, low turn-on voltage blue-violet quantum-dot-based light-emitting diodes.
abstract: We report high-efficiency blue-violet quantum-dot-based light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs) by using high quantum yield ZnCdS/ZnS graded core-shell QDs with proper surface ligands. Replacing the oleic acid ligands on the as-synthesized QDs with shorter 1-octanethiol ligands is found to cause a 2-fold increase in the electron mobility within the QD film. Such a ligand exchange also results in an even greater increase in hole injection into the QD layer, thus improving the overall charge balance in the LEDs and yielding a 70% increase in quantum efficiency. Using 1-octanethiol capped QDs, we have obtained a maximum luminance (L) of 7600 cd/m(2) and a maximum external quantum efficiency (ηEQE) of (10.3 ± 0.9)% (with the highest at 12.2%) for QD-LEDs devices with an electroluminescence peak at 443 nm. Similar quantum efficiencies are also obtained for other blue/violet QD-LEDs with peak emission at 455 and 433 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of blue QD-LEDs with ηEQE > 10%. Combined with the low turn-on voltage of ∼2.6 V, these blue-violet ZnCdS/ZnS QD-LEDs show great promise for use in next-generation full-color displays.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida , Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
authors.forename: Huaibin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Weiran
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Nathan T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Shewmon
authors.forename: Chenchen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Lin Song
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jiangeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xue
keywords: Colloidal quantum dots; external quantum efficiency; light-emitting diodes; surface ligands