Brightening deep-blue perovskite light-emitting diodes: A path to Rec. 2020 | Science Advances

Deep-blue perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) of high purity are highly sought after for next-generation displays complying with the Rec. 2020 standard. However, mixed-halide perovskite materials designed for deep-blue emitters are prone to halide vacancies, which readily occur because of the low formation energy of chloride vacancies. This degrades bandgap instability and performance. Here, we propose a chloride vacancy–targeting passivation strategy using sulfonate ligands with different chain lengths. The sulfonate groups have a strong affinity for lead(II) ions, effectively neutralizing vacancies. Our strategy successfully suppressed phase segregation, yielding color-stable deep-blue PeLEDs with an emission peak at 461 nanometers and a maximum luminance ( L _max ) of 2707 candela per square meter with external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 3.05%, one of the highest for Rec. 2020 standard–compliant deep-blue PeLEDs. We also observed a notable increase in EQE up to 5.68% at L _max of 1978 candela per square meter with an emission peak at 461 nanometers by changing the carbon chain length.