Highly Flexible, Electrically Driven, Top-Emitting, Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Stickers

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 8; no. 8; pp. 8224 - 8231
• Main Authors: Yang, Xuyong, Mutlugun, Evren, Dang, Cuong, Dev, Kapil, Gao, Yuan, Tan, Swee Tiam, Sun, Xiao Wei, Demir, Hilmi Volkan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 26-08-2014
• Subjects: quantum dot; flexibility; polyimide tape; light-emitting diodes; electroluminescence
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/nn502588k

Flexible information displays are key elements in future optoelectronic devices. Quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) with advantages in color quality, stability, and cost-effectiveness are emerging as a candidate for single-material, full color light sources. Despite the recent advances in QLED technology, making high-performance flexible QLEDs still remains a big challenge due to limited choices of proper materials and device architectures as well as poor mechanical stability. Here, we show highly efficient, large-area QLED tapes emitting in red, green, and blue (RGB) colors with top-emitting design and polyimide tapes as flexible substrates. The brightness and quantum efficiency are 20 000 cd/m2 and 4.03%, respectively, the highest values reported for flexible QLEDs. Besides the excellent electroluminescence performance, these QLED films are highly flexible and mechanically robust to use as electrically driven light-emitting stickers by placing on or removing from any curved surface, facilitating versatile LED applications. Our QLED tapes present a step toward practical quantum dot based platforms for high-performance flexible displays and solid-state lighting.