Spectrally Stable Deep-Blue Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Layer-Transferred Single-Crystalline Ruddlesden-Popper Halide Perovskites

Abstract

A novel approach to producing high-color-purity blue-light-emitting diodes based on single-crystalline Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites (RPPs) is reported. The utilization of a pure bromide composition eliminates any possibility of halide segregation, which can otherwise lead to undesired shifts in the emission wavelength or irreversible degradation of the spectral line width. Phase-pure PEA2MAPb2Br7 single crystals with a lateral size exceeding 1 cm2 can be synthesized using the inverse temperature crystallization method. To prepare RPP layers with a thickness of less than 50 nm, we employ a thinning process of the initially thick bulk crystals, followed by a dry-transfer process to place them onto a hole transport layer and an indium-tin-oxide-coated glass substrate. By utilizing polydimethylsiloxane as a handling layer, deformations of the bulk RPP crystal and exfoliated RPP layer, as well as the formation of defects such as pinholes, can be effectively suppressed. Subsequent depositions of an electron transport layer and a metal contact complete the fabrication of electroluminescence (EL) devices. The EL devices utilizing the single-crystalline RPP demonstrate excellent spectral stability across a broad range of the applied bias voltage spanning from 4.5 to 10 V, exhibiting a significantly narrow line width of 14 nm at an emission wavelength of 440 nm that can potentially cover 99.3% of the Rec. 2020 color gamut. The sharp EL emission spectrum can be effectively preserved, avoiding any broadening of the line width, by suppressing Joule heating throughout the device operation, in addition to the intrinsic stability of single-crystalline RPPs.