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Pure-violet oxygen-doped carbon quantum rings with near-unity quantum yield and a full-width at half-maximum of 18 nm

Nature Synthesis (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

High-colour-purity violet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with colour coordinates close to the human visual threshold are essential for achieving wide-colour-gamut displays. However, it remains challenging for visible-light emitters to achieve both luminescence peaks shorter than 400 nm and a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) below 20 nm due to irreducible π-conjugation length and strong vibrational relaxation in the excited state. Here this study introduces planar oxygen-doped carbon quantum rings (OD-CQRs) composed of twelve benzene rings and six embedded five-membered oxygen heterocycles. These OD-CQRs exhibit a fluorescence peak centre at 393 nm, a FWHM of 18 nm and a photoluminescence quantum yield of 95%. Detailed structural characterizations coupled with theoretical calculations reveal that the ring profile and alternatively embedded oxygen heterocycles in OD-CQRs effectively suppress π-electron delocalization and excited-state vibrational relaxation, due to non-bonding electron characteristics. The electroluminescent LEDs based on OD-CQRs demonstrate high-colour-purity violet emission with chromaticity coordinates of (0.161, 0.017), approaching the edge of the visible colour space.

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Fig. 1: Synthesis route, structural characterization and PL spectrum of OD-CQRs.
Fig. 2: Spectroscopic characterizations of OD-CQRs.
Fig. 3: Electronic properties of non-doped CQDs and OD-CQRs.
Fig. 4: Luminescence mechanism of non-doped CQDs and OD-CQRs.
Fig. 5: Electroluminescence characteristics of OD-CQR-based LED.

Data availability

The data supporting the findings of the current study are available within the Article and its Supplementary Information. Crystallographic data for the structure 2 reported in this Article have been deposited at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, under deposition number CCDC 2409067. Copies of the data can be obtained free of charge via https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21872010, L.F., 22372009, Y.Z., and 22302012, F.Y.), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFE0112200, Z.T.), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFB3611800, F.Y.) and the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (Overseas, F.Y.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Theoretical & Computational Photochemistry of Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Xianzhi Song, Chen Zhang, Diandong Tang, Yang Zhang, Ting Yuan, Ting Meng, Yuxin Shi, Jing Guo, Lin Shen, Xiaohong Li, Yunchao Li, Fanglong Yuan & Louzhen Fan

  2. Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China

    Zhan’ao Tan

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  1. Xianzhi Song
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Contributions

L.F., X.S., Y.Z., Z.T. and F.Y. designed the experiment. X.S., C.Z. and J.G. fabricated the samples for structural characterization. X.S., D.T. and L.S. performed the theoretical calculation and simulations. X.S., T.Y., T.M. and Y.S. fabricated the LED devices. X.S., Y.Z., T.Y., T.M., Y.S., X.L., Y.L., Z.T., F.Y. and L.F. analysed the data. X.S., Y.Z., Z.T., F.Y. and L.F. wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yang Zhang, Zhan’ao Tan, Fanglong Yuan or Louzhen Fan.

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Nature Synthesis thanks Qing-Xiao Tong and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Peter Seavill, in collaboration with the Nature Synthesis team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

General methods, Supplementary Figs. 1–29 and Tables 1–15.

Supplementary Data 1

Crystallographic data.

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Statistical source data.

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Song, X., Zhang, C., Tang, D. et al. Pure-violet oxygen-doped carbon quantum rings with near-unity quantum yield and a full-width at half-maximum of 18 nm. Nat. Synth (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00922-4

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