Dual emitting carbon nanoparticles for tunable white light emission

Abstract

Eco-friendly, biomass derived single component luminescent materials with dual emission bands hold immense potential in white light emitting devices (WLED). Compared to WLED fabricated from different color emitting carbon nanoparticles, self-reabsorption and degradation will be negligible in single system white light emitting materials which guarantees stability in long run. Herein, we report a facile, inexpensive and sustainable direct thermal decomposition method to synthesize carbon nanoparticles with dual emission bands. Addition of PVP could efficiently enhance the red emission band of carbon nanoparticles. The excitation dependent broad blue-green emission and excitation independent narrow red emission helps to obtain white light emitting carbon nanoparticles. Upon change in excitation wavelength from 410 nm to 370 nm, white light emissions are obtained with tunable CCT value from 2648 K to 8980 K respectively. By virtue of this tunable warm to cool white light emission, single system WLED can be designed suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications.