Efficient and environmentally friendly white light-emitting diodes with InP-based quantum dots embedded in mesoporous silica

As one of the promising next-generation light conversion materials, indium phosphide quantum dots (InP QDs) deserve much attention due to their great optical performances and environmentally friendly properties in particular. Herein, InP-based QDs are embedded into mesoporous SBA-15 and solid QDs/SBA-15 composites are prepared, which exhibit 1.5 times higher photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) and narrower full width of half maximum (FWHM) than traditional QDs powder thanks to the reduction of light reabsorption and the optical waveguide effect of mesoporous structure. These advantages contribute to the performance enhancement of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The luminous efficacy of the LED with green QDs/SBA-15 is 99.49 lm/W, which is higher than that of QDs powder (66.14 lm/W). In addition, the white LED fabricated with green and red InP-based QDs/SBA-15 shows luminous efficacy of 61.38 lm/W. More importantly, the luminous efficacy of the white LED is improved to 129.62 lm/W when using the K 2 SiF 6 :Mn 4+ instead of red InP-based QDs/SBA-15, because the K 2 SiF 6 :Mn 4+ does not absorb the emission from green InP-based QDs/SBA-15. This value is higher than those white LEDs with InP-based QDs reported previously. It is believed that this study demonstrates the promising potential of InP-based QDs for optoelectronic applications.