Synthesis of emission tunable AgInS₂/ZnS quantum dots and application for light emitting diodes

Abstract Indium-rich environmentally-friendly quantum dots (QDs) have received widespread attention due to the absence of cadmium. In this paper, AgInS 2 (AIS) QDs are synthesized by hot injection method. By adjusting the ratio of indium/silver (In/Ag = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), the AIS QDs exhibit a blue shift from 868 nm to 603 nm with the indium composition increases. Therein, the AIS QDs with the ratio of In/Ag = 4 show a highest photoluminescent (PL) quantum yields (QYs) up to 57%. AIS QDs are coated with ZnS shell to passivate the surface defects, and the PL QYs of obtained core/shell AIS/ZnS QDs is increased to 72%. By using these AIS/ZnS QDs as light emitters, light emitting diodes are assembled with a stacked multi-layer structure ITO/PEDOT:PSS/Poly-TPD/QDs/ZnO:Mg/Al. The resulted electroluminescent (EL) device exhibits a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 1.25% and an open circuit voltage of 4.6 V corresponding to a maximum brightness of 1120 cd m −2 . Although the performances of the as fabricated AIS/ZnS-based device lag much behind than those of the Cd-based ones, they are expected to be enhanced with much more studies on the synthesis of the QDs and the optimization of device structure.