Easy and versatile coating approach for long-living white hybrid light-emitting diodes

Abstract

Herein, we provide a new easy-to-do protocol for preparing luminescent rubber-like materials based on a wide palette of compounds, such as small-molecules, quantum dots, polymers, and coordination complexes. The combination of this new protocol with that for preparing similar rubbers based on fluorescent proteins states the universal character of our approach. This is further assessed by using comprehensive spectroscopic and rheological investigations. Furthermore, the novel luminescent rubbers are applied as down-converting packing systems to develop white hybrid light-emitting diodes (WHLEDs), which are heralded as a solid alternative to achieve energy-saving, solid-state, and white-emitting sources in the coming future. As such, the current work also provides a clear prospect of this emerging lighting technology by means of a direct comparison among WHLEDs fabricated with all the above-mentioned down-converting systems. Here, the use of rubbers based on coordination complexes outperforms the others in terms of both luminous efficiency and colour quality with an unprecedented stability superior to 1000 h under continuous operation conditions. This represents an order of magnitude enhancement compared to the state-of-the-art WHLEDs, while keeping luminous efficiencies of around 100 lm W⁻¹.