In situ formation and photo patterning of emissive quantum dots in organic small molecules
Abstract
Nanostructured composites of inorganic and organic materials are attracting extensive interest for electronic and optoelectronic device applications. Here we report a novel method for the fabrication and patterning of metal selenide nanoparticles in organic semiconductor films that is compatible with solution processable large area device manufacturing. Our approach is based upon the controlled in-situ decomposition of cadmium selenide precursor complex in a film of the electron transporting material 1,3,5-tris(N-phenyl-benzimidazol-2-yl)-benzene (TPBI) by thermal and optical methods. Specifically we show that the photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of the thermally converted CdSe quantum dots (QDs) in the TPBI film is up to 15%. We also show that laser illumination can form the QDs from the precursor. This is an important result as it enables direct laser patterning (DLP) of the QDs. DLP was performed on these nanocomposites using a picosecond laser. Confocal microscopy shows the formation of emissive QDs after laser irradiation. The optical and structural properties of the QDs were also analysed by means of UV-Vis, PL spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that the QDs are well distributed across the film and their emission can be tuned over a wide range by varying the temperature or irradiated laser power on the blend films. Our findings provide a route to the low cost patterning of hybrid electroluminescent devices.
Citation
Bansal , A K , Sajjad , M T , Antolini , F , Stroea , L , Gecys , P , Raciukaitis , G , Andre , P , Hirzer , A , Schmidt , V , Ortolani , L , Toffanin , S , Allard , S , Scherf , U & Samuel , I 2015 , ' In situ formation and photo patterning of emissive quantum dots in organic small molecules ' , Nanoscale . https://doi.org/10.1039/C5NR01401H
Publication
Nanoscale
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2040-3364Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright 2015 the Authors. This Open Access Article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Description
We acknowledge financial support from FP7 LAMP project “Laser Induced Synthesis of Polymeric Nanocomposite Materials and Development of Micro-patterned Hybrid Light Emitting Diodes (LED) and Transistors (LET)” (Grant No. 247928). AKB and IDWS also acknowledge financial support from EPSRC Programme grant “Challenging the limits of photonics: Structured light” EP/J01771X/1. In addition IDWS acknowledges a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.Collections
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