Rare earth-free composites of carbon dots/metal–organic frameworks as white light emitting phosphors

Over the last few years, numerous efforts have been made to develop white light emitting metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), due to the useful features of MOFs such as ultrahigh surface areas and tunable pore architecture. However, rare earth (RE) ions are most commonly applied as phosphors in these materials so far, raising device cost and environmental concerns. Here, we designed a new type of RE-free material capable of white light emission upon excitation at 365 nm, with the photoluminescence quantum yield in the solid state reaching 37%, fabricated by compositing carbon dots (CDs) with a Zr(IV)-based MOF. WLEDs constructed by depositing the CDs/Zr-MOF nanocomposite on a commercial UV LED chip feature CIE chromaticity coordinates of (0.31, 0.34), a high color rendering index (CRI) of 82, and a luminous efficiency of 1.7 lm W−1.