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To nano or not to nano for bright halide perovskite emitters

Nature Nanotechnology volume 16, pages 1164–1168 (2021)Cite this article

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The halide perovskite family has, arguably, become today’s most promising emerging materials sets for optoelectronic applications. Here, we discuss the underperformance to date of the colloidal nanocrystal forms of these materials when employed in electroluminescent lighting devices relative to their counterparts, in which the emitter layer is in the form of polycrystalline films. However, we highlight the bright future of halide perovskite colloidal nanocrystals in light-emission technologies such as LCD displays, quantum light sources and even alternative LED configurations, as well as key guidelines for their further development to get there.

Halide perovskites are a promising platform for offering light-emitting applications, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs), colour conversion systems and quantum photonic technologies (that is, highly coherent single-photon sources and entangled photon emitters) with high brightness, judicious bandgap tunability and exceptional colour purity1. The most efficient and stable perovskite LEDs to date have employed precursor-deposited polycrystalline halide perovskite thin films formed directly from the precursor salts upon deposition and incorporated into devices2, with the crystalline size of the emitter layer ranging from micrometres to a few nanometres, depending on the composition and forming conditions. Halide perovskite colloidal nanocrystals (c-NCs) offer additional benefits in optical properties over their polycrystalline counterparts, including faster radiative lifetimes, higher photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) and narrower emission linewidth, owing to the pre-formed dimensions within the quantum-confinement size regime and sizeable exciton binding energy1. These remarkable properties should, in principle, make the c-NC counterparts better active layers for electroluminescent lighting; indeed, the recent record values of external quantum efficiency — which quantifies the number of photons produced per electron injected — of >20% in the green and red were presented using c-NCs3,4. Nevertheless, so far c-NC-based electroluminescent emitters have yet to match directly deposited polycrystalline films in both performance efficiency and operational stability. These roadblocks and the fact that the quantum confinement regime can be accessible — to some extent — through self-assembly of precursors have given rise to debates over where pre-formed perovskite c-NCs will fit into such lighting applications and other future technology developments.

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Fig. 1: Unique opportunities offered by halide perovskite c-NCs.
Fig. 2: Halide perovskite c-NC quantum light sources.

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Acknowledgements

G.R. acknowledges M. Bodnarchuk for helpful discussions and support in the preparation of Fig. 2. G.R. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 200021_192308). M.V.K. acknowledges funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA8655-21-1-7013. The work received funding from the European Research Council (ERC; grant agreement no. 756962 (HYPERION)) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. S.D.S acknowledges support from the Royal Society and Tata Group (UF150033) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, EP/R023980/1 and EP/S030638/1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Javad Shamsi & Samuel D. Stranks

  2. Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Gabriele Rainò & Maksym V. Kovalenko

  3. Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Gabriele Rainò & Maksym V. Kovalenko

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Samuel D. Stranks

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  1. Javad Shamsi
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  2. Gabriele Rainò
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Correspondence to Samuel D. Stranks.

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Shamsi, J., Rainò, G., Kovalenko, M.V. et al. To nano or not to nano for bright halide perovskite emitters. Nat. Nanotechnol. 16, 1164–1168 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-01005-z

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