The performance of blue quantum dot light-emitting diodes
(QLEDs)
is limited by unbalanced charge injection, resulting from insufficient
holes caused by low mobility or significant energy barriers. Here,
we introduce an angular-shaped heteroarene based on cyclopentane[b]thiopyran (C8–SS) to modify the hole
transport layer poly-N-vinylcarbazole (PVK), in blue
QLEDs. C8–SS exhibits high hole mobility and conductivity
due to the π···π and S···π
interactions. Introducing C8–SS to PVK significantly
enhanced hole mobility, increasing it by 2 orders of magnitude from
2.44 × 10–6 to 1.73 × 10–4 cm2 V–1 s–1. Benefiting
from high mobility and conductivity, PVK:C8–SS-based
QLEDs exhibit a low turn-on voltage (V
on) of 3.2 V. More importantly, the optimized QLEDs achieve a high
peak power efficiency (PE) of 7.13 lm/W, which is 2.65 times that
of the control QLEDs. The as-proposed interface engineering provides
a novel and effective strategy for achieving high-performance blue
QLEDs in low-energy consumption lighting applications.