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Perovskite light-emitting diodes based on solution-processed self-organized multiple quantum wells

Abstract

Organometal halide perovskites can be processed from solutions at low temperatures to form crystalline direct-bandgap semiconductors with promising optoelectronic properties1,2,3,4,5. However, the efficiency of their electroluminescence is limited by non-radiative recombination, which is associated with defects and leakage current due to incomplete surface coverage6,7,8,9. Here we demonstrate a solution-processed perovskite light-emitting diode (LED) based on self-organized multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with excellent film morphologies. The MQW-based LED exhibits a very high external quantum efficiency of up to 11.7%, good stability and exceptional high-power performance with an energy conversion efficiency of 5.5% at a current density of 100 mA cm−2. This outstanding performance arises because the lower bandgap regions that generate electroluminescence are effectively confined by perovskite MQWs with higher energy gaps, resulting in very efficient radiative decay. Surprisingly, there is no evidence that the large interfacial areas between different bandgap regions cause luminescence quenching.

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Figure 1: Perovskite MQW films.
Figure 2: Device structure of the NFPI7 perovskite MQW LED.
Figure 3: Optoelectronic characteristics of the NFPI7 and NFPI6B perovskite MQW LEDs.
Figure 4: EL colour tunability and device stability of the perovskite MQW LEDs.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China- Fundamental Studies of Perovskite Solar Cells (2015CB932200), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK20131413, BK20140952 and BM2012010), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11474164, 51522209, 91433204, 61405091 and 11474249), the National 973 Program of China (2015CB654901), the Jiangsu Specially-Appointed Professor programme, the Synergetic Innovation Center for Organic Electronics and Information Displays, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2015FZA3005), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU no. 2009-00971), the Swedish Research Council (VR, 330-2014-6433), and the European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (691210 and INCA 600398). We thank H. Li for assistance with the AFM measurements, C. Wang for assistance with the UV–vis absorbance measurements, H. He & B. Su for assistance with the PLE and TCSPC measurements and X. Liang for the UPS measurements. We thank P. Fowler for proofreading and X. Liu for helpful discussions.

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Contributions

J.W. had the idea for and designed the experiments. J.W. and W.H. supervised the work. L.C., R.G., N.W. and S.Z. carried out the device fabrication and characterizations. Y.M., Y.S. and Y.C. conducted the optical measurements. W.Z. set up the testing systems and took part in the optical measurements. C.Y. and Y.C. synthesized the NMAI/NMABr and measured AFM. R.Y., Q.G., Y.K., M.Y., D.D. and L.Y. participated in the device fabrication and characterizations. G.X. measured the transient absorption. Y.L., Q.D., H.T, C.J., Y.J. and Y.W. carried out the HRTEM and STEM characterizations. J.W., N.W. and F.G. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Y.J., R.H.F. and W.H. participated in data analysis and provided major revisions. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jianpu Wang or Wei Huang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Wang, N., Cheng, L., Ge, R. et al. Perovskite light-emitting diodes based on solution-processed self-organized multiple quantum wells. Nature Photon 10, 699–704 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.185

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