Bright Green and Blue Solid-State Emitting Carbon Dots With Optimized Photoluminescence Characteristics for Fabrication of High-Performance Light Emitting Diodes

Abstract

Luminescent carbon dots (CDs) possess a range of fundamental and technological advantages, including low-cost, and scalable preparation methods, high emission efficiency, tunable electronic properties, and adaptable surface characteristics. However, aggregation-caused quench in solid-state emission of CDs has constrained their applications in luminescent solar-concentrators, and light-emitting devices. This study introduces a rapid and straightforward microwave method for producing bright blue-and green-emissive CDs, with emission peaks at 440 nm and 520 nm, respectively. Blue-CDs showed excitation-dependent feature with a biexponential decay profile and average lifetime of 6.3 ns, while the green one signified an excitation-independent photoluminescence profile with longer average lifetime of 9 ns through biexponential fitting of decay plot. Upon optimization of experimental parameters, reproducible green emission with a high efficiency of 78 % was achieved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The critical role of biurea as a nitrogen precursor was elucidated through experimental and computational investigations. Furthermore, owing to the bright solid-state emission of the synthesized CDs, they were utilized as color-converting layers in the fabrication of durable monochrome LEDs, yielding blue and yellowish-green emissions with Commission Internationale de L'E<acute accent>clairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.16, 0.10) and (0.35, 0.57), respectively. This study highlights the potential of CDs for applications in light-emitting panels.