Carbon dot-based white and yellow electroluminescent light emitting diodes with a record-breaking brightness.

First, oleophilic carbon dots (CDs) with a fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of 41% were synthesized by a one-pot microwave-assisted carbonization method. Then, CD-based electroluminescent light emitting diodes (CD-LEDs) were prepared. The impact of CD aggregation on the brightness of CD-LEDs was studied. The results show that, to some extent, with the decrease of the aggregation of the CD film, the luminescence quenching of the CD-LEDs gradually decreased, and the luminance of the CD-LEDs gradually increased. Hence, in order to improve the dispersion of CDs and reduce the aggregation of CDs and the luminescence quenching of the devices, host-guest doping was adopted to effectively improve the brightness of CD-LEDs. In this work, the yellow emission of the doped devices is mainly derived from the direct carrier trapping on CDs. Moreover, white and yellow CD-LEDs were obtained from the same oleophilic CDs by tuning the structure of the devices. The white CD-LEDs exhibit a high color rendering index (CRI) of 83 with a luminance of 455.2 cd m-2. The yellow CD-LEDs show the maximum brightness of 339.5 cd m-2 and excellent color stability. The results show that the luminescence quenching of CD-LEDs was resisted and the brightness of CD-LEDs was improved by using host-guest doping.