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High-Efficiency, Solution-Processed White Quantum
Dot Light-Emitting Diodes with Serially Stacked
Red/Green/Blue Units
Fan Cao, Dewei Zhao, Piaoyang Shen, Jialong Wu, Haoran Wang, Qianqian Wu,
Feijiu Wang, and Xuyong Yang*
DOI: 10.1002/adom.201800652
primary red (R), green (G), and blue (B)
QLEDs have exceeded 15%,
[13–17]
which
are comparable to those of state-of-the-art
organic LEDs (OLEDs), rendering QLED
technology great commercial potential in
high-quality lighting and display products.
White QLEDs (WQLEDs) are of great
interest to practical applications in illu-
mination and backlight.
[18–20]
Although
considerable efforts have been made in
fabricating WQLEDs, most were fabri-
cated by mixing different-emission-wave-
length QDs such as red, green, and blue
QDs together as a single white emissive
layer.
[21,22]
To date, the highest EQE of
WQLEDs is only ≈10% due to inefficient
exciton formation and nonradiative For-
ster resonant energy transfer (FRET) as
well as electrically driven charge transfer
(CT) among different-color QDs,
[23–25]
which still needs further enhancement
in order to compete with those of mature WOLEDs.
[26,27]
A
tandem structure by stacking several emitting units is an effec-
tive method to fabricate efficient white LEDs, which has been
widely employed in WOLEDs for the practical applications in
lighting and displays. Advantages of building tandem devices
cover: (i) effectively confine each color emission within indi-
vidual emitting unit; (ii) largely reduce the nonradiative FRET
among different-color mixed QDs; (iii) precisely tune the
single-color emission from the emitting unit by controlling
their brightness to obtain warm white emission.
[28]
However,
two main challenges for interconnecting layer (ICL) have to be
undergone for solution-processed tandem QLEDs: (i) complete
protection to suppress the underneath layers from damages
during multiple coatings by solutions, and (ii) efficient charge
generation at the ICL to provide balanced charges injected into
each emitting unit. Recently, Chen and co-workers reported a
tandem WQLED by using ZnMgO/poly (3,4- ethylenedioxythiop
hene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) heterojunction as ICL
to connect red, green, and blue QLEDs, exhibiting a maxi mum
EQE of ≈2%.
[29]
As mentioned, the primary issue is still the
likely damage of functional films during the multiple coat-
ings by solution process. Therefore, making high-performance
WQLEDs with tandem architecture remains a big challenge.
Here, we demonstrate a highly efficient tandem WQLED
with serially stacking R/G/B units by an all-solution fabrication
Despite the fast advances in monochrome quantum dots (QDs) based light-
emitting diodes (QLEDs), the performance for white QLEDs (WQLEDs) with
great potential for illumination and backlight applications to date has fallen
short of that of state-of-the-art white organic LEDs. Here, a highly efficient
all-solution-processed WQLED with a serially stacked red/green/blue tandem
structure, which displays an almost perfect white emission with the Com-
mission Internationale de l’Enclairage coordinates of (0.34, 0.33) is reported.
The white device exhibits peak current efficiency of 79.9 cd A
−1
and external
quantum efficiency of 28.0%, which are the highest efficiency values ever
reported in WQLEDs. The record performance for the WQLEDs is achieved by
the effective interconnecting layer with excellent charge generation and the
insertion of a polyethylenimine ethoxylated interlayer between the ZnO elec-
tron transport layer and QDs emissive layer in each unit for better balancing
charge injection and suppressing the quenching of QDs emission due to the
contact with ZnO.
F. Cao. P. Shen, J. Wu, H. Wang, Q. Wu, Prof. X. Yang
Key Laboratory of Advanced Display and System Applications
Ministry of Education
Shanghai University
149 Yanchang Road, Shanghai 200072, China
E-mail: yangxy@shu.edu.cn
Dr. D. Zhao
Department of Physics and Astronomy and Wright Center
for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization
The University of Toledo
Toledo, OH 43606, USA
Dr. F. Wang
Institute of Advanced Energy
Kyoto University
Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
Interface Engineering
Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) based light-emitting diodes
(QLEDs) are one of the most promising candidates for next-
generation displays and solid-state lighting owing to their
superior optical properties such as tunable emission wave-
length, extraordinary saturated color, high luminous stability,
and low-cost processability.
[1–4]
With combined efforts in QDs
synthesis and device structure engineering, the performance of
QLEDs has been improved greatly in the recent few years.
[5–12]
Nowadays, the external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of all the
Adv. Optical Mater. 2018, 1800652