Boosting Efficiency and Curtailing the Efficiency Roll-Off in Green Perovskite Light-Emitting Diodes via Incorporating Ytterbium as Cathode Interface Layer

Perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) exhibit high external quantum efficiencies (EQEs), emerging as a next-generation lighting and display technology. Nevertheless, they suffer from severe efficiency roll-off at high luminance, particularly in the case of blue and green emissions, which is one of the major bottlenecks in their industrial applications. Here, we attack this problem using a rare-earth metal, Yb, as cathode interface layer (CIL) for green PeLEDs. By adopting a new device configuration of ITO/TFB/FA-based quasi-2D perovskite/TPBi/Yb/Ag, we achieved a peak current efficiency (CE) of 22.3 cd/A with a corresponding EQE of 5.28% and a high maximum luminance of 19 160 cd/m2. Importantly, the maximum CE of 22.0 cd/A at 2000 cd/m2 slightly decreased to 16.8 cd/A at 5000 cd/m2 and maintained a still-decent value of 12.0 cd/A at a high luminance of 10 000 cd/m2, exhibiting a remarkably low efficiency roll-off. Our Yb-incorporated devices significantly outperformed the PeLEDs containing conventional CILs, including Mg and Liq, in terms of peak efficiency, efficiency roll-off, and operational lifetime. We attribute this encouraging performance to barrier-free, efficient electron injection enabled by the low work function of Yb (2.6 eV), which led to a high electron current, nearly approaching the hole current in hole-dominant PeLEDs, as confirmed by the single-carrier device measurements. In addition, we also present Yb-incorporated PeLEDs containing Cs-based quasi-2D perovskite as the emissive layer, which displayed an impressive CE of 51.3 cd/A with a corresponding EQE of 16.4% and a maximum luminance of 14 240 cd/m2, and still demonstrated a reduced efficiency roll-off comparing to that of the Liq-based equivalent. These results unveil the inspiring prospects of Yb as an efficient CIL for PeLEDs toward high efficiency with curtailed roll-off.