Mg-Diffusion of ZnO-Based Electron-Transport Layers for Highly Conductive Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diodes.

Quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) show great potential in next-generation display and lighting technologies. Further reducing the resistances of the high-efficiency QLEDs is critical to improving their luminous efficiencies and lowering their power consumption. However, wet-chemistry methods to improve the conductivities of ZnO-based electron-transport layers (ETLs) often lead to trade-offs in the external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of QLEDs. Here, we report a facile approach toward highly conductive QLEDs by in situ diffusion of Mg atoms into the ZnO-based ETLs. We demonstrate that thermally evaporated Mg can spread deep into the ZnO-based ETL with a long penetration length, generating oxygen vacancies that promote the electron-transport properties. The Mg-diffused ETLs enhance the conductivities and luminous efficiencies of state-of-the-art QLEDs without sacrificing the EQEs. This strategy is applied to QLEDs with various optical architectures, leading to significant enhancements in the current densities, luminances, and luminous efficiencies. We expect that our method could be extended to other solution-processed LEDs using ZnO-based ETLs.