Fine-Tuning Crystal Structures of Lead Bromide Perovskite Nanocrystals by Trace Cadmium(II) Doping Enables Efficient Color-Saturate Green LEDs

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2024 Apr 28:e202403996. doi: 10.1002/anie.202403996. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Decreasing perovskite nanocrystal size increases radiative recombination due to the quantum confinement effect, but also increases the Auger recombination rate which leads to carrier imbalance in the emitting layers of electroluminescent devices. Here, we overcome this trade-off by increasing the exciton effective mass without affecting the size, which is realized through the trace Cd2+ doping of formamidinium lead bromide perovskite nanocrystals. We observe an ~2.7 times increase in the exciton binding energy benefiting from a slight distortion of the [BX6]4- octahedra caused by doping in the case of that the Auger recombination rate is almost unchanged. As a result, bright color-saturated green emitting perovskite nanocrystals with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 96% are obtained. The light-emitting devices based on those nanocrystals reached a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 29.4% corresponding to a current efficiency of 123 cd A-1, and showed dramatically improved device lifetime, with a narrow bandwidth of 22 nm and Commission Internationale de I'Eclairage coordinates of (0.20, 0.76) for color-saturated green emission for the electroluminescence peak centered at 534 nm, thus being fully compliant with the latest standard for wide color gamut displays.

Keywords: Auger recombination; Light-emitting diodes; Nanocrystals; Perovskite; quantum confinement effect.