Preparation of CdTe superparticles for white light-emitting diodes without Förster resonance energy transfer

Due to many unique and excellent optical properties, quantum dots (QDs) have been seen as one of the most promising color conversion materials in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) among different colored QDs always causes a significant red-shift of the fluorescence emission, impeding the fabrication of LEDs with predicted photoluminescence (PL) emission spectra. In this work, we take advantage of CdTe superparticles (SPs), which are assembled by CdTe QDs, as the color conversion materials for the fabrication of WLEDs. Because of their submicron size, the distance between QDs with different emissions can be large enough to avoid the FRET process. More importantly, this method provides us with an opportunity to precisely design and regulate the PL emission spectra of LEDs. By easily overlapping the individual PL spectra of CdTe SPs with different emissions, the certain ratio of their usage for fabricating LEDs with desired PL emission spectra is identified. According to this idea, a WLED with a color rendering index (CRI) of 81, luminous efficacy of 27 lm W(−1), and color coordinate at (0.33, 0.34) with the color temperature of 5742 K is achieved.