On the 20th, reporters learned from Tsinghua University that the team led by Associate Professor Han Sanyang from the university’s Shenzhen International Graduate School, in collaboration with the teams led by Professor Xu Hui and Professor Han Chunmiao from Heilongjiang University, as well as the team led by Professor Liu Xiaogang from the National University of Singapore, has jointly published their latest research findings. The study has designed and “clothed” rare-earth nanocrystals with an “energy-conversion coating,” enabling efficient energy transfer to the organic molecular interface of the rare-earth nanocrystals. This breakthrough paves the way for new advances in addressing challenges related to the research and application of electroluminescent devices.

　　On that day, the above-mentioned research findings were published online in the international academic journal Nature under the title “Capturing Electroluminescent Excitons to Achieve Tunable Electroluminescence from Rare-Earth Nanocrystals.”

　　Rare-earth nanocrystals possess inherent advantages such as tunable emission colors, narrow emission spectra, and high luminescence stability. By precisely controlling the composition of dopant ions within the nanocrystals, this material system can achieve multi-color luminescence across a wide color gamut, making it widely regarded as a “promising candidate” for electroluminescent materials. However, the insulating nature of rare-earth materials poses significant challenges to current injection and transport, earning these nanocrystals the nickname “insulating gems” in the field of luminescent materials. This “current-driven” bottleneck has thus far hindered the research and application of rare-earth materials in modern optoelectronic technologies.

　　To address the above-mentioned challenges, Han Sanyang’s team collaborated with the teams led by Xu Hui, Han Chunmiao, and Liu Xiaogang to tackle these issues in a groundbreaking manner. They innovatively equipped rare-earth nanocrystals with an “energy-conversion coating” through surface modification, employed an organic-inorganic hybrid strategy to precisely tune the energy-level structure, and leveraged ligand engineering to efficiently distribute exciton energy to lanthanide-ion luminescent centers. As a result, they successfully resolved the core challenges of exciton generation, transport, and injection in electroluminescence, achieving highly efficient electroluminescence with high color purity and tunable spectra.

　　“The significance of this achievement lies in the fact that we’ve not only ‘gotten electricity flowing’ through rare-earth materials, but also opened the door to their application in modern optoelectronic technologies,” Han Sanyang explained. Multiple experimental results show that this breakthrough holds great potential for electro-luminescence across a wide range of wavelengths—particularly in high-resolution, wide-color-gamut displays and near-infrared technologies. Moreover, without making substantial changes to the device structure, multi-color luminescence can be achieved simply by tuning the rare-earth ions.

　　It is reported that this achievement will not only promote the application of rare-earth luminescence in fields such as flexible displays and near-infrared devices, but also holds promise for further applications in areas like human health monitoring, non-invasive detection, and the development of supplemental lighting technologies for crops.