Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have emerged as promising materials for optoelectronic applications on account of carbon’s intrinsic merits of high stability, low cost, and environment-friendliness. However, the CQDs usually give broad emission with full width at half maximum exceeding 80 nm, which fundamentally limit their display applications. Here we demonstrate multicolored narrow bandwidth emission (full width at half maximum of 30 nm) from triangular CQDs with a quantum yield up to 54–72%. Detailed structural and optical characterizations together with theoretical calculations reveal that the molecular purity and crystalline perfection of the triangular CQDs are key to the high color-purity. Moreover, multicolored light-emitting diodes based on these CQDs display good stability, high color-purity, and high-performance with maximum luminance of 1882–4762 cd m⁻² and current efficiency of 1.22–5.11 cd A⁻¹. This work will set the stage for developing next-generation high-performance CQDs-based light-emitting diodes.

An overview of the synthesis, optical properties, luminescence mechanism, and optoelectronic applications of CQDs is presented.

We report water-soluble, 3 nm uniform-sized graphene quantum dots (GQDs) with red emission prepared by electrochemical exfoliation of graphite in K ₂ S ₂ O ₈ solution. Such GQDs show a great potential as biological labels for cellular imaging.