Solution-processed optoelectronic and electronic devices are attractive owing to the potential for low-cost fabrication of large-area devices and the compatibility with lightweight, flexible plastic substrates. Solution-processed light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using conjugated polymers or quantum dots as emitters have attracted great interest over the past two decades. However, the overall performance of solution-processed LEDs--including their efficiency, efficiency roll-off at high current densities, turn-on voltage and lifetime under operational conditions-remains inferior to that of the best vacuum-deposited organic LEDs. Here we report a solution-processed, multilayer quantum-dot-based LED with excellent performance and reproducibility. It exhibits colour-saturated deep-red emission, sub-bandgap turn-on at 1.7 volts, high external quantum efficiencies of up to 20.5 per cent, low efficiency roll-off (up to 15.1 per cent of the external quantum efficiency at 100 mA cm(-2)), and a long operational lifetime of more than 100,000 hours at 100 cd m(-2), making this device the best-performing solution-processed red LED so far, comparable to state-of-the-art vacuum-deposited organic LEDs. This optoelectronic performance is achieved by inserting an insulating layer between the quantum dot layer and the oxide electron-transport layer to optimize charge balance in the device and preserve the superior emissive properties of the quantum dots. We anticipate that our results will be a starting point for further research, leading to high-performance, all-solution-processed quantum-dot-based LEDs ideal for next-generation display and solid-state lighting technologies.

High-performance perovskite light-emitting diodes are achieved by an interfacial engineering approach, leading to the most efficient near-infrared devices produced using solution-processed emitters and efficient green devices at high brightness conditions.

Quantum dots are a unique class of emitters with size-tunable emission wavelengths, saturated emission colors, near-unity luminance efficiency, inherent photo- and thermal- stability and excellent solution processability. Quantum dots have been used as down-converters for back-lighting in liquid-crystal displays to improve color gamut, leading to the booming of quantum-dot televisions in consumer market. In the past few years, efficiency and lifetime of electroluminescence devices based on quantum dots achieved tremendous progress. These encouraging facts foreshadow the commercialization of quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs), which promises an unprecedented generation of cost-effective, large-area, energy-saving, wide-color-gamut, ultra-thin and flexible displays. Here we provide a Progress Report, covering interdisciplinary aspects including material chemistry of quantum dots and charge-transporting layers, optimization and mechanism studies of prototype devices and processing techniques to produce large-area and high-resolution red-green-blue pixel arrays. We also identify a few key challenges facing the development of active-matrix QLED displays.

We introduce stoichiometry control within both core and shell regions of InP/ZnSe/ZnS core/shell/shell quantum dots (QDs) to advance their properties drastically, approaching those of state-of-the-art CdSe-based QDs. The resulting QDs possess near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield, monoexponential decay dynamics, narrow line width, and nonblinking at a single-dot level. Quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) with the InP/ZnSe/ZnS core/shell/shell QDs as emitters exhibit a peak external quantum efficiency of 12.2% and a maximum brightness of >10 000 cd m–2, greatly exceeding those of the Cd/Pb-free QLEDs reported in literature. These results pave the way toward Cd/Pb-free QDs as outstanding optical and optoelectronic materials.

Solution processability of nanocrystals coated with a stable monolayer of organic ligands (nanocrystal-ligands complexes) is the starting point for their applications, which is commonly measured by their solubility in media. A model described in the other report (10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b00737) reveals that instead of offering steric barrier between inorganic cores, it is the rotation/bending entropy of the C-C σ bonds within typical organic ligands that exponentially enhances solubility of the complexes in solution. Dramatic ligand chain-length effects on the solubility of CdSe-n-alkanoates complexes shall further reveal the power of the model. Subsequently, "entropic ligands" are introduced to maximize the intramolecular entropic effects, which increases solubility of various nanocrystals by 10(2)-10(6). Entropic ligands can further offer means to greatly improve performance of nanocrystals-based electronic and optoelectronic devices.