Nickel Oxide Hole Injection Layers for Balanced Charge Injection in Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes

Quantum dot (QD) light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) are promising for next-generation displays, but suffer from carrier imbalance arising from lower hole injection compared to electron injection. A defect engineering strategy is reported to tackle transport limitations in nickel oxide-based inorganic hole-injection layers (HILs) and find that hole injection is able to enhance in high-performance InP QLEDs using the newly designed material. Through optoelectronic simulations, how the electronic properties of NiOx affect hole injection efficiency into an InP QD layer, finding that efficient hole injection depends on lowering the hole injection barrier and enhancing the acceptor density of NiOx is explored. Li doping and oxygen enriching are identified as effective strategies to control intrinsic and extrinsic defects in NiOx, thereby increasing acceptor density, as evidenced by density functional theory calculations and experimental validation. With fine-tuned inorganic HIL, InP QLEDs exhibit a luminance of 45 200 cd m-2 and an external quantum efficiency of 19.9%, surpassing previous inorganic HIL-based QLEDs. This study provides a path to designing inorganic materials for more efficient and sustainable lighting and display technologies. Tailored nickel oxide is an efficient inorganic hole-injection layer (HIL) for InP-based quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs). Optimization through Li doping and ultraviolet ozone treatment achieves efficient hole injection into the InP quantum dot with balanced charge injection. The resulting QLEDs outperform previous inorganic HIL-based QLEDs, displaying a luminance of 45 200 cd m-2 and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 19.9%. image