N-doped carbon dots from phenol derivatives for excellent colour rendering WLEDs.

To achieve competitive fluorescence carbon dots (CDs), studies on regulating fluorescence of CDs under controlled, comparable conditions are in great demand. Herein, by changing the functional groups and nitrogenous existence forms in the precursors, three efficient yellow-green emissive N-doped CDs which have the same fluorescence peak wavelength but different photoluminescence quantum yields were realized through a facile hydrothermal method. The as-prepared CDs exhibit not only excited-independent emissions but also similar surface states. The best-performing CDs among the three products exhibits photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 24.4% in water and 53.3% in ethanol, abundant surface functional groups and its high N-doping degree would be the reason for its excellent performances. By washing and reduction processes, the emission evolution of the CDs was studied linking the changes of surface states. The fluorescence can certainly be attributed to the surface of the carbon dots, and the surface states control the photoluminescence features. Serving as a yellow-green colour conversion layer, the best CDs in the three products was used to fabricate a white light-emitting diode. The white light-emitting diode shows an excellent colour rendering index up to 93.3, suggesting broad application prospects of the CDs in lighting and display fields.