Enhancing Heat Dissipation of Photoluminescent Composite in White-Light-Emitting Diodes by 3D-Interconnected Thermal Conducting Pathways

The photoluminescent composite, which consists of micro-/nanoscale photoluminescent particles and a polymer matrix, plays a key role in optical wavelength conversion in white-light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). Heat is inevitably generated within the composite due to the energy lost through conversion and cannot be easily dissipated due to the extremely low thermal conductivity of the polymer matrix. Consequently, the composite suffers from a high working temperature, which severely deteriorates its optical performance as well as its long-term stability in WLEDs. To tackle this thermal issue, in this work three-dimensional (3D)-interconnected thermal conducting pathways composed of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) platelets were constructed inside a photoluminescent composite, using a simplified bubbles-templating method. The thermal conductivity of the composite was efficiently enhanced from 0.158 to 0.318 W/(m∙K) under an ultralow hBN loading condition of 2.67 wt%. As a result, the working temperature of the photoluminescent composite in WLEDs was significantly reduced by 32.9 °C (from 102.3 °C to 69.4 °C, under 500 mA). Therefore, the proposed strategy can improve the heat accumulation issue in photoluminescent composites and thus improve the optical stability of WLEDs.