Violet electroluminescence is rare in both inorganic and organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Low-cost and room-temperature solution-processed lead halide perovskites with high-efficiency and color-tunable photoluminescence are promising for LEDs. Here, we report room-temperature color-pure violet LEDs based on a two-dimensional lead halide perovskite material, namely, 2-phenylethylammonium (C6H5CH2CH2NH3(+), PEA) lead bromide [(PEA)2PbBr4]. The natural quantum confinement of two-dimensional layered perovskite (PEA)2PbBr4 allows for photoluminescence of shorter wavelength (410 nm) than its three-dimensional counterpart. By converting as-deposited polycrystalline thin films to micrometer-sized (PEA)2PbBr4 nanoplates using solvent vapor annealing, we successfully integrated this layered perovskite material into LEDs and achieved efficient room-temperature violet electroluminescence at 410 nm with a narrow bandwidth. This conversion to nanoplates significantly enhanced the crystallinity and photophysical properties of the (PEA)2PbBr4 samples and the external quantum efficiency of the violet LED. The solvent vapor annealing method reported herein can be generally applied to other perovskite materials to increase their grain size and, ultimately, improve the performance of optoelectronic devices based on perovskite materials.
Keywords: layered perovskite; nanoplate; solvent vapor annealing; violet-light-emitting diode (LED).