Morphological and Chemical Changes in Cd-free Colloidal QD-LEDs During Operation

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Zhang, Ruiqi, Geng, Jamie, Tan, Shaun, Srinivasan, Shreyas, Kim, Taehyung, Saravanapavanantham, Mayuran, Lim, Kwang-Hee, Dillender, Mike, Chung, Heejae, Nguyen, Thienan, Yang, Karen, Lu, Yongli, Kim, Taegon, Bawendi, Moungi G., Bulovic, Vladimir
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866915496072314880
author Zhang, Ruiqi
Geng, Jamie
Tan, Shaun
Srinivasan, Shreyas
Kim, Taehyung
Saravanapavanantham, Mayuran
Lim, Kwang-Hee
Dillender, Mike
Chung, Heejae
Nguyen, Thienan
Yang, Karen
Lu, Yongli
Kim, Taegon
Bawendi, Moungi G.
Bulovic, Vladimir
author_facet Zhang, Ruiqi
Geng, Jamie
Tan, Shaun
Srinivasan, Shreyas
Kim, Taehyung
Saravanapavanantham, Mayuran
Lim, Kwang-Hee
Dillender, Mike
Chung, Heejae
Nguyen, Thienan
Yang, Karen
Lu, Yongli
Kim, Taegon
Bawendi, Moungi G.
Bulovic, Vladimir
contents Heavy metal-free quantum-dot light-emitting devices (QD-LEDs) have demonstrated remarkable brightness, saturated color, and high efficiencies across a broad spectral range. However, in contrast to organic LEDs (OLEDs), QD-LED operational lifetimes remain limited, with the underlying degradation mechanisms not fully understood. In the present study, we show that InP/ZnSe/ZnS (red-emitting) and ZnTeSe/ZnSe/ZnS (blue-emitting) cadmium-free colloidal QD-LEDs undergo nanoscale morphological changes during operation. Specifically,interparticle coarsening and layer thinning are observed in the electron transport layer (ETL) consisting of ZnMgO nanoparticles (NPs), in the QD emissive layer, and in the organic hole transport layer. This is accompanied by the generation and diffusion of compositional oxygen- and hydrogen-radicals throughout the device, with oxygen accumulating at the electrode/ETL interfance. Moreover, in situ transmission electron microscopy reveals the electron beam exposure, in the presence of hydrogen radicals, accelerates ZnMgO NPs coarsening. To mitigate these degradation pathway, we show that acrylate-based resin-encapsulation treatment stabilize the ETL/QD layers by suppressing the radical formation and halting morphology changes. This approach achieves dramatic stability enhancements, exhibits an 8-fold and 5000-fold lifetime improvement on InP/ZnSe/ZnS and ZnTeSe/ZnSe/ZnS QD-LEDs, respectively. Our findings establish the causal relationships between the morphological degradation, interlayer radical dynamics, and state-of-the-art QD-LEDs instability, providing new insights into a scalable encapsulation treatment that enables efficient and long-lived Cd-free QD-LEDs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_12597
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Morphological and Chemical Changes in Cd-free Colloidal QD-LEDs During Operation
Zhang, Ruiqi
Geng, Jamie
Tan, Shaun
Srinivasan, Shreyas
Kim, Taehyung
Saravanapavanantham, Mayuran
Lim, Kwang-Hee
Dillender, Mike
Chung, Heejae
Nguyen, Thienan
Yang, Karen
Lu, Yongli
Kim, Taegon
Bawendi, Moungi G.
Bulovic, Vladimir
Applied Physics
Materials Science
Heavy metal-free quantum-dot light-emitting devices (QD-LEDs) have demonstrated remarkable brightness, saturated color, and high efficiencies across a broad spectral range. However, in contrast to organic LEDs (OLEDs), QD-LED operational lifetimes remain limited, with the underlying degradation mechanisms not fully understood. In the present study, we show that InP/ZnSe/ZnS (red-emitting) and ZnTeSe/ZnSe/ZnS (blue-emitting) cadmium-free colloidal QD-LEDs undergo nanoscale morphological changes during operation. Specifically,interparticle coarsening and layer thinning are observed in the electron transport layer (ETL) consisting of ZnMgO nanoparticles (NPs), in the QD emissive layer, and in the organic hole transport layer. This is accompanied by the generation and diffusion of compositional oxygen- and hydrogen-radicals throughout the device, with oxygen accumulating at the electrode/ETL interfance. Moreover, in situ transmission electron microscopy reveals the electron beam exposure, in the presence of hydrogen radicals, accelerates ZnMgO NPs coarsening. To mitigate these degradation pathway, we show that acrylate-based resin-encapsulation treatment stabilize the ETL/QD layers by suppressing the radical formation and halting morphology changes. This approach achieves dramatic stability enhancements, exhibits an 8-fold and 5000-fold lifetime improvement on InP/ZnSe/ZnS and ZnTeSe/ZnSe/ZnS QD-LEDs, respectively. Our findings establish the causal relationships between the morphological degradation, interlayer radical dynamics, and state-of-the-art QD-LEDs instability, providing new insights into a scalable encapsulation treatment that enables efficient and long-lived Cd-free QD-LEDs.
title Morphological and Chemical Changes in Cd-free Colloidal QD-LEDs During Operation
topic Applied Physics
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12597