Chinese researchers have made a significant breakthrough in the development of perovskite light-emitting diodes (LEDs), dramatically extending their lifespan and brightness.
A team led by Professor Xiao Zhengguo from the University of Science and Technology of China has devised a novel method to create all-inorganic perovskite films with larger crystal grains and enhanced heat resistance. This innovation has boosted LED brightness to over 1.16 million nits and extended the operational lifespan to more than 180,000 hours.
“This breakthrough overcomes a long-standing technical challenge where perovskite LEDs struggled to achieve both high efficiency and stability simultaneously,” said Professor Xiao. “It opens up significant potential for future applications in high-end displays and ultra-high-brightness lighting.”
The study has been published in the renowned journal Nature.
Perovskite is a high-performance material valued for its exceptional luminous efficiency, low cost, and processing flexibility. It holds great promise for use in solar cells, LEDs, and photodetectors. However, traditional perovskite materials have faced challenges because electrons and holes—the charge carriers responsible for light emission—do not collide efficiently to produce light.
Previous attempts to enhance luminous efficiency involved creating very small nanoparticles or ultra-thin material layers. While this improved efficiency, it made it difficult to achieve high brightness and resulted in short lifespans of just a few hours, limiting practical use.
To address this, Professor Xiao’s team introduced specific compounds into the perovskite material and employed a high-temperature annealing process. This resulted in a new type of perovskite film with larger crystal grains and fewer defects, leading to greater internal order and significantly enhancing LED stability and brightness.
The new perovskite LED achieves a luminous efficiency exceeding 22 percent, comparable to commercial display products. Its extraordinary brightness reaches 1.16 million nits, far surpassing mainstream commercial OLED or LED screens, which typically peak at several thousand nits.
Considering that the peak brightness of displays used daily is around several thousand nits and a normal brightness level is about 100 nits, the new perovskite LED’s theoretical lifespan exceeds 180,000 hours. This meets and even surpasses the standards required for commercial LED products.
