Blue and green electroluminescence from CdSe nanocrystal quantum-dot-quantum-wells

Abstract

CdS/CdSe/ZnS quantum dot quantum well (QDQW) nanocrystals were synthesized using the successive ion layer adsorption and reaction technique, and their optical properties were tuned by bandgap and strain engineering. 3-monolayer (ML) CdSe QWs emitted blue photoluminescence at 467 nm with a spectral full-width-at-half-maximum of ∼30 nm. With a 3 ML ZnS cladding layer, which also acts as a passivating and strain-compensating layer, the QDQWs acquired a ∼35% quantum yield of the QW emission. Blue and green electroluminescence (EL) was obtained from QDQW light-emitting devices with 3–4.5 ML CdSe QWs. It was found that as the peak blueshifted, the overall EL was increasingly dominated by defect state emission due to poor hole injection into the QDQWs. The weak EL was also attributed to strong field-induced charge separation resulting from the unique QDQW geometry, weakening the oscillator strength of optical transitions.