Freestanding Luminescent Films of Nitrogen-Rich Carbon Nanodots toward Large-Scale Phosphor-Based White-Light-Emitting Devices

In this work, nitrogen-rich carbon nanodots (CNDs) are prepared by the emulsion-templated carbonization of polyacrylamide. The formation mechanism and chemical structure are investigated by infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. Transmission electron microscopy also reveals that the obtained CNDs have well-developed graphitic structure and narrow size distribution without any size selection procedure. We vary the molecular weight of the polymer to control the size of the CNDs and finally obtain the CNDs rendering bright visible light under UV illumination with a high quantum yield of 40%. Given that the CNDs are worth utilizing in phosphor applications, we fabricate large-scale (20 X 20 cm) freestanding luminescent films of the CNDs based on a poly(methyl methacrylate) matrix. The polymer matrix can not only provide mechanical support but also disperse the CNDs to prevent solid-state quenching. For practical application, we demonstrate white LEDs consisting of the films as color converting phosphors and InGaN blue LEDs as illuminators. Such white LEDs exhibit no temporal degradation in the emission spectrum under practical operation conditions. This study would suggest a promising way to exploit the luminescence from solid-state CNDs and offer strong potential for future CND based solid-state lighting systems.