Stabilizing perovskite nanocrystals by controlling protective surface ligands density

After nanocrystals synthesis, the purification process with anti-solvents is an essential step to get clean nanocrystals, which could get rid of the by-products of the synthesis. It is generally recognized that this process could bring a positive effect for the afterward optoelectronic applications. Unfortunately, we found that the optical properties and photostability of perovskite CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals were unavoidably deteriorated after they were washed with anti-solvents, and this deterioration is strongly related to the decreasing of surface ligands density. Therefore, in this paper, we tried to purposely not wash the CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals solution after adding didodecyl dimethylammonium bromide (DDAB), and found the existing of DDAB in solution could result in a dramatically enhanced photostability. Inspired by these results, we proposed a new strategy to stabilize perovskite nanocrystals from the view of packaging process: adding protective ligands into the perovskite nanocrystals resin directly, then encapsulating them on blue light-emitting diodes (LED) chips. Surprisingly, stable LED devices (20 mA, 2.7V) were achieved by this way, which can keep 80% of the initial photoluminescence (PL) intensity for more than 50 h, while the devices with CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals without adding protective ligands into resin dropped to 50% of their initial PL intensity within 6 h. This approach offers a new thought to stabilize perovskite nanocrystals as down-conversion phosphor in quantum dots liquid crystal display.