ABSTRACT
Nowadays, the demand for low-cost light emitters is high, covering a wide range of different applications in advertisement and give-away industry, low-cost indicators, and displays, for example, consumer electronics, mobile phones, toys, and many more. In addition, cost-efficient large-area emitters are highly desired in automotive industry as well as in architecture, urban development, and interior for innovative design and ambient lightning applications. Additional profitable market segments can be created by introducing emitters on flexible substrates. So far, these demands are mostly covered by organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) (Müllen 2006; Jain 2007; Li 2007; Held 2009). For both, covering these market segments and developing new ones, nanoparticle-based emitters are regarded as an attractive alternative to OLEDs with the potential of an improvement in lifetime, power consumption, and fabrication costs. Nanoparticle-based light-emitting devices (NP-LEDs) are expected to combine the robustness, long-term stability, and efficiency of traditional semiconductor material systems, known from epitaxially grown LEDs and laser diodes (Burnham 2000; Held 2009; Mottier 2009), with flexible low-cost large-area fabrication techniques known from OLEDs (Müllen 2006; Jain 2007; Li 2007; Held 2009).
