High-performance single-component white light-emitting diodes based on donor-acceptor integrated carbon nitride

White light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) as energy-saving light sources are widely used to alleviate the rising electric consumption. Most commercial WLEDs are blue/yellow-mixed emitting devices, which have some disadvantages, such as physiological damages of rich blue light, complex device structure and color aging. It is essential to develop single-component WLEDs with quasi-solar spectrum to overcome these problems. Here we demonstrate a high-performance single-component WLED based on donor-acceptor integrated carbon nitride (DACN) material. The donor-acceptor simultaneously increases the photoluminescence efficiency and the carrier mobility of graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN), hence, the DACN-based WLED reaches a milestone in maximum luminance of 2,045 cd m⁻² and maximum external quantum efficiency of 2.2%, which are one order of magnitude higher than pristine g-CN-based LED. Furthermore, the DACN-based WLED emits broadband white light with color coordinates of (0.34, 0.44) and a color temperature of 5,163 K. Our works open a way to boost optoelectronic properties of g-CN materials and show their promising application in single-component WLEDs.