Synthesis and modulation of multicolor fluorescent carbon dots from p-phenylenediamine and dansyl derivative for white light emitting diodes

Carbon dots (C-dots) with multicolor emission are promising in the development of white light emitting diode (WLED) devices with high efficiency and low cost. In this study, we synthesized C-dots with tricolor emissions of blue (C-DsCl), green (C-pPDDS) and red (C-pPD) via the hydrothermal method using dansyl chloride, p-phenyldiaminadansyl and p-phenylenediamine as precursors, respectively. The fluorescent properties of the synthesized C-dots were found to be dependent on the presence of heteroatoms obtained via modulation of the pphenylenediamine and dansyl chloride molecules, leading to an increased quantum yield for the N and S codoped C-dots. The C-dots/PVP film displayed good CRI up to 89, CCT of 5628 K and color coordinates of (0.33, 0.31), close to that of pure white-light emission (0.33, 0.33). So, the C-dots with multicolor emission produced in this study can be used as a color converter to produce high-quality WLEDs.