Cadmium-Free Nanostructured Multilayer Thin Films with Bright Blue Photoluminescence and Excellent Stability

Kai Ou; Jia Luo; Shenwei Wang; Lixin Yi; Yudong Xia

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c01481

Cadmium-Free Nanostructured Multilayer Thin Films with Bright Blue Photoluminescence and Excellent Stability

ACS Omega. 2021 Jun 23;6(26):16869-16875. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c01481. eCollection 2021 Jul 6.

Authors

Kai Ou¹, Jia Luo¹, Shenwei Wang², Lixin Yi², Yudong Xia¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China.
² Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Optical Information, Ministry of Education, Institute of Optoelectronic Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China.

Abstract

Cadmium-based quantum dots (Cd-QDs) show decent performance for lighting applications due to good color saturation, an excellent high quantum yield, and a narrow full-width at half-maximum. However, the intrinsic toxicity of Cd is a major hindrance to related applications, especially in the biological field. ZnSe, with a band gap of 2.7 eV and lower toxicity than CdSe or CdS, is promising as a blue luminescent material. Herein, we mainly reported the preparation and luminescence properties of nanostructured ZnSe/ZnS multilayer thin films with bright blue photoluminescence. The photoluminescence spectrum contained two emission peaks, located at about 442 nm (near band-edge emission) and 550 nm (defect-related emission), respectively. More importantly, the photoluminescence performance and decay were explored in detail through low-temperature photoluminescence spectra. In addition, the nanostructured ZnSe/ZnS multilayer thin films showed favorable photostability.