Ligand-Nondestructive Direct Photolithography Assisted by Semiconductor Polymer Cross-Linking for High-Resolution Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes

The photolithographic patterning of fine quantum dot (QD) films is of great significance for the construction of QD optoelectronic device arrays. However, the photolithography methods reported so far either introduce insulating photoresist or manipulate the surface ligands of QDs, each of which has negative effects on device performance. Here, we report a direct photolithography strategy without photoresist and without engineering the QD surface ligands. Through cross-linking of the surrounding semiconductor polymer, QDs are spatially confined to the network frame of the polymer to form high-quality patterns. More importantly, the wrapped polymer incidentally regulates the energy levels of the emitting layer, which is conducive to improving the hole injection capacity while weakening the electron injection level, to achieve balanced injection of carriers. The patterned QD light-emitting diodes (with a pixel size of 1.5 μm) achieve a high external quantum efficiency of 16.25% and a brightness of >1.4 × 10⁵ cd/m². This work paves the way for efficient high-resolution QD light-emitting devices.