Stable Yellow Light-Emitting Devices Based on Ternary Copper Halides with Broadband Emissive Self-Trapped Excitons

Great successes have been achieved in developing perovskite light-emitting devices (LEDs) with blue, green, red, and near-infrared emissions. However, as key optoelectronic devices, yellow-colored perovskite LEDs remain challenging, mainly due to the inevitable halide separation in mixed halide perovskites under high bias, causing undesired color change of devices. In addition to this color-missing problem, the intrinsic toxicity and poor stability of conventional lead-halide perovskites also restrict their practical applications. We herein report the fabrication of stable yellow LEDs based on a ternary copper halide CsCu₂I₃, addressing the color instability and toxicity issues facing current perovskite yellow LED’s compromise. Joint experiment–theory characterizations indicate that the yellow electroluminescence originates from the broadband emission of self-trapped excitons centered at 550 nm as well as the comparable and reasonably low carrier effective masses favorable for charge transport. With a maximum luminance of 47.5 cd/m² and an external quantum efficiency of 0.17%, the fabricated yellow LEDs exhibit a long half-lifetime of 5.2 h at 25 °C and still function properly at 60 °C with a half-lifetime of 2.2 h, which benefits from the superior resistance of CsCu₂I₃ to heat, moisture, and oxidation in ambient environmental conditions. The results obtained promise the copper halides with broadband light emission as an environment-friendly and stable yellow emitter for the LEDs compatible with practical applications.