Perovskite Nanocrystals Protected by Hermetically Sealing for Highly Bright and Stable Deep-Blue Light-Emitting Diodes

Metal–halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) have emerged as suitable light-emitting materials for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and other practical applications. However, LEDs with perovskite NCs undergo environment-induced and ion-migration-induced structural degradation during operation; therefore, novel NC design concepts, such as hermetic sealing of the perovskite NCs, are required. Thus far, viable synthetic conditions to form a robust and hermetic semiconducting shell on perovskite NCs have been rarely reported for LED applications because of the difficulties in the delicate engineering of encapsulation techniques. Herein, a highly bright and durable deep-blue perovskite LED (PeLED) formed by hermetically sealing perovskite NCs with epitaxial ZnS shells is reported. This shell protects the perovskite NCs from the environment, facilitates charge injection/transport, and effectively suppresses interparticle ion migration during the LED operation, resulting in exceptional brightness (2916 cd m⁻²) at 451 nm and a high external quantum efficiency of 1.32%. Furthermore, even in the unencapsulated state, the LED shows a long operational lifetime (T₅₀) of 1192 s (≈20 min) in the air. These results demonstrate that the epitaxial and hermetic encapsulation of perovskite NCs is a powerful strategy for fabricating high-performance deep-blue-emitting PeLEDs.