Study of conduction mechanism and electroluminescence in CdSe/ZnS quantum dot composites

Charge transport and electroluminesence properties of colloidally synthesized CdSe/ZnS core–shell nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) were studied. Nanocrystals were prepared using the conventional technique of pyrolisis of organometallic reagents in a hot coordinating solvent medium. Thin film diodes were produced by depositing a layer of QDs on top of a layer of conducting polymer poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): polystyrenesulfonate followed by the deposition of a metal electrode. For all the metals used in this study only a small rectification could be observed upon reversing the bias. The efficiency of the light generation showed strong dependence on the work function and bias of the metal electrodes, indicating that light generation in these devices is a result of recombination of injected holes and electrons. Assuming that the charge transport is due mainly to electrons, the voltage dependence of the current in QD composites could be explained by space charge limited current (SCLC) in the presence of defects. At sufficiently high voltages the traps could be filled and a quadratic dependence of current on voltage, characteristic of trap free SCLC, could be observed. The mobility and the trap density were estimated to be ${\mu }_{{n}}{\text{=1.5×10}}^{\text{−10}}\hspace{0.17em}{\mathrm{m}}^2/\mathrm{V s}$ and ${{N}}_{{t}}{\text{=8×10}}^{23}\hspace{0.17em}{\mathrm{m}}^{\text{−3}},$ respectively, and the characteristic trap depth was estimated to be around 0.15 eV.