Near-Unity Excitation and Radiative Efficiencies in Electroluminescence Without External Carrier Injection

Abstract

Electroluminescence occurring without external charge injection is typically characterized by weak emission and excessive driving voltage, due to low excitation and radiative recombination efficiencies. Here, we demonstrate non-injecting electroluminescence (NI-EL) that challenges this conventional perception. To achieve this, we introduce an operational paradigm that leverages remote, state-abundant charge reservoirs, which elevates the excitation efficiency close to unity - a greater-than-20-fold improvement over the benchmark. This strategy is augmented by quantum dots (QDs) with nonmonotonically graded shells, raising the high-field radiative efficiency by approximately 7-8-fold. The resultant RGB NI-EL devices uniformly exhibit bright and efficient pulsed emissions, with key metrics including: a turn-on threshold of 3.7 Vrms for red; a luminance of 291,628 nits and a power efficiency of 302.6 lm/W for green, with light-outcoupling enhancement; and, for blue, the superior emitter stability of the first QD-based blue NI-EL over its light-emitting diode counterpart. The minimal dielectric loss, sub-100 ns response time, and external EL efficiency of up to 45.4% further reinforce the mechanism-performance causality. These results overcome the inherent mechanistic limitations of NI-EL and establish performance that rivals or surpasses injection-type EL, including AC- or DC-driven variants, positioning NI-EL as a promising platform for high-performance pulsed light sources.