On the accurate characterization of quantum-dot light-emitting diodes for display applications

Abstract

Quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) are a class of high-performance solution-processed electroluminescent (EL) devices highly attractive for next-generation display applications. Despite the encouraging advances in the mechanism investigation, material chemistry, and device engineering of QLEDs, the lack of standard protocols for the characterization of QLEDs may cause inaccurate measurements of device parameters and invalid comparison of different devices. Here, we report a comprehensive study on the characterizations of QLEDs using various methods. We show that the emission non-uniformity across the active area, non-Lambertian angular distributions of EL intensity, and discrepancies in the adopted spectral luminous efficiency functions could introduce significant errors in the device efficiency. Larger errors in the operational-lifetime measurements may arise from the inaccurate determination of the initial luminance and inconsistent methods for analyzing the luminance-decay curves. Finally, we suggest a set of recommended practices and a checklist for device characterizations, aiming to help the researchers in the QLED field to achieve accurate and reliable measurements.