Mitigating bulk halide defects in blue-emissive perovskite nanocrystals using benzoyl halides for efficient light-emitting diodes

Abstract

While recent advances have demonstrated highly efficient and stable perovskite light-emitting diodes (LEDs), blue perovskite LEDs still show low performance compared to green, red, near IR counterparts. Despite perovskites being well-known for their defect tolerance, blue perovskites are highly vulnerable to defects, which introduce deep trap states. In this study, we mitigated bulk halide vacancies in perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) via the diffusion-assisted halide repairing strategy. We confirmed halide vacancies inside as-synthesized PNCs, both in the core and on the surface, through HADDF-STEM. By treating PNCs with benzoyl halides, these halide vacancies were further mitigated due to halide diffusion via concentration gradients between the surface and the core, resulting in enhanced PLQY of the PNCs. In the fabrication of blue PNCs LEDs, this approach yielded a comparable efficiency with an EQE of 5.37 % at 469 nm, demonstrating the robustness of our method for efficient blue perovskite LEDs. Furthermore, the peak wavelengths of benzoyl halide-treated PNCs LEDs remained stable during operation, whereas those of pristine PNC LEDs exhibited peak shifts. We believe that our novel approach can be universally applied to various types of perovskites, reducing bulk vacancies. This advancement will be a significant breakthrough for the performance enhancement of blue perovskite LEDs in the future.