Transient Leakage Electroluminescence of Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diodes

Parasitic emission or leakage emission caused by electron leakage to a hole transport layer in quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) critically impacts device efficiency and operational stability. The buildup dynamics of such emission channels, however, was insufficiently researched. Herein, we investigate transient electroluminescence dynamics of leakage emission in red/green/blue (R/G/B) QLEDs and reveal notable contrast for R and G. In RQLEDs, leakage emission exhibits delayed turning-on than primary emission, which is attributed to much slower filling up from lower-energy electron states and the initial quenching by nonradiative recombination with trapped holes. For GQLEDs, leakage emission turns on much more concurrently, and emission preferably starts from higher energy states. For R/G QLEDs, under varied offset voltage modulation, the current efficiency of primary emission is invert-correlated to leakage emission, reconfirming leakage emission as a loss indicator.