Facile plasma-induced fabrication of fluorescent carbon dots toward high-performance white LEDs

In this study, we report a facile plasma-induced method to fabricate photoluminescent carbon dots (CDs) using acrylamide as the precursor in few minutes. The Fourier transform infrared spectra, UV–Vis absorption spectra, photoluminescence, fluorescent lifetime, and transmission electron microscopy of the as-prepared CDs were investigated thoroughly. The CDs have a narrow size distribution of 3–4 nm and exhibit strong blue fluorescence with quantum yield of ~6 %. More importantly, we explored the CDs as color converters along with CdTe quantum dots to generate white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using a UV-LED chip as the excitation light source. Compared with the conventional YAG:Ce phosphor-based white LEDs, this resulted LED emitted white light with a higher color rendering index up to 87, which may find their potential in optoelectronic device.