ZnSe:Te/ZnSeS/ZnS nanocrystals: an access to cadmium-free pure-blue quantum-dot light-emitting diodes

Cadmium-free quantum dots (QDs) are attracting considerable research attention because of their low toxicity. However, the bandgap of most cadmium-free QDs avoids the pure-blue region, which leads to difficulty in realizing pure-blue quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs). In this work, we successfully tuned the emission wavelength of ZnSe/ZnS quantum dots from the violet region (∼420 nm) to the pure-blue region (450-460 nm) by doping Te into the ZnSe core. The ZnSe:0.03Te/ZnSeS/ZnS QD sample with emission at 450 nm and a quantum yield of 30% was the most balanced formula. To overcome the energy gap between the hole-transfer layer and QD layers, a specific hole-transfer layer was developed for normal-structure QLEDs. A QLED with such a structure with ZnSe:0.03Te/ZnSeS/ZnS QDs achieved the pure-blue light emission at 455 nm, a low turn-on voltage of 4.4 V, and an external quantum efficiency of 0.33%. Overall, our cadmium-free QLED achieved pure-blue emission, revealing the potential of ZnSe-based pure-blue QLEDs for future displays.