Suppression of temperature quenching in perovskite nanocrystals for efficient and thermally stable light-emitting diodes

The thermal quenching of light emission is a critical bottleneck that hampers the real-world application of lead halide perovskite nanocrystals in both electroluminescent and down-conversion light-emitting diodes. Here, we report CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals with a temperature-independent emission efficiency of near unity and constant decay kinetics up to a temperature of 373 K. This unprecedented regime is obtained by a fluoride post-synthesis treatment that produces fluorine-rich surfaces with a wider energy gap than the inner nanocrystal core, yielding suppressed carrier trapping, improved thermal stability and efficient charge injection. Light-emitting diodes incorporating these fluoride-treated perovskite nanocrystals show a low turn-on voltage and spectrally pure green electroluminescence with an external quantum efficiency as high as 19.3% at 350 cd m−2. Importantly, nearly 80% of the room-temperature external quantum efficiency is preserved at 343 K, in contrast to the dramatic drop commonly observed for standard CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystal light-emitting diodes. These results provide a promising pathway for high-performance, practical light-emitting diodes based on perovskite nanostructures. Fluoride-treated CsPbBr3 nanocrystals emit light with near unity efficiency at temperatures of up to 373 K.