Ultra-bright, efficient and stable perovskite light-emitting diodes

Metal halide perovskites are attracting a lot of attention as next-generation light-emitting materials owing to their excellent emission properties, with narrow band emission1–4. However, perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs), irrespective of their material type (polycrystals or nanocrystals), have not realized high luminance, high efficiency and long lifetime simultaneously, as they are influenced by intrinsic limitations related to the trade-off of properties between charge transport and confinement in each type of perovskite material5–8. Here, we report an ultra-bright, efficient and stable PeLED made of core/shell perovskite nanocrystals with a size of approximately 10 nm, obtained using a simple in situ reaction of benzylphosphonic acid (BPA) additive with three-dimensional (3D) polycrystalline perovskite films, without separate synthesis processes. During the reaction, large 3D crystals are split into nanocrystals and the BPA surrounds the nanocrystals, achieving strong carrier confinement. The BPA shell passivates the undercoordinated lead atoms by forming covalent bonds, and thereby greatly reduces the trap density while maintaining good charge-transport properties for the 3D perovskites. We demonstrate simultaneously efficient, bright and stable PeLEDs that have a maximum brightness of approximately 470,000 cd m−2, maximum external quantum efficiency of 28.9% (average = 25.2 ± 1.6% over 40 devices), maximum current efficiency of 151 cd A−1 and half-lifetime of 520 h at 1,000 cd m−2 (estimated half-lifetime >30,000 h at 100 cd m−2). Our work sheds light on the possibility that PeLEDs can be commercialized in the future display industry. The authors develop a method for the production of ultra-bright, efficient and stable perovskite light-emitting diodes, achieved with a simple in situ reaction process.