Near-unity emitting, widely tailorable, and stable exciton concentrators built from doubly gradient 2D semiconductor nanoplatelets

Abstract

The strength of electrostatic interactions (EIs) between electrons and holes within semiconductor nanocrystals profoundly affects the performance of their optoelectronic systems, and different optoelectronic devices demand distinct EI strength of the active medium. However, achieving a broad range and fine-tuning of the EI strength for specific optoelectronic applications is a daunting challenge, especially in quasi two-dimensional core–shell semiconductor nanoplatelets (NPLs), as the epitaxial growth of the inorganic shell along the direction of the thickness that solely contributes to the quantum confined effect significantly undermines the strength of the EI. Herein we propose and demonstrate a doubly gradient (DG) core–shell architecture of semiconductor NPLs for on-demand tailoring of the EI strength by controlling the localized exciton concentration via in-plane architectural modulation, demonstrated by a wide tuning of radiative recombination rate and exciton binding energy. Moreover, these exciton-concentration-engineered DG NPLs also exhibit a near-unity quantum yield, high photo- and thermal stability, and considerably suppressed self-absorption. As proof-of-concept demonstrations, highly efficient color converters and high-performance light-emitting diodes (external quantum efficiency: 16.9%, maximum luminance: 43,000 cd/m2) have been achieved based on the DG NPLs. This work thus provides insights into the development of high-performance colloidal optoelectronic device applications.