Significant improvement of near-UV electroluminescence from ZnO quantum dot LEDs via coupling with carbon nanodot surface plasmons

Short-wavelength LEDs, a hot research topic in modern optoelectronics, have attracted tremendous attention in recent years because of their great application potential in both civil and military domains. Compared to conventional metallic surface-plasmons (SPs), carbon nanodot (CD) SPs with less optical loss and low cost, broader SP resonant frequency and good biocompatibility are expected to provide more prominent luminescence enhancement for light emitters. Herein, SP-enhanced near-UV emission quantum dot LEDs (Q-LED) were fabricated via introducing CDs into p-GaN/Al2O3/ZnO Q-LEDs by optimizing the molar ratio of ZnO quantum dots to CDs and a significant enhancement (similar to similar to 20-fold) of the near-UV electroluminescence (EL) intensity from the ZnO-based Q-LEDs was achieved. Time-resolved spectroscopy studies reveal that the observed luminescence enhancement arises due to the resonant coupling between ZnO excitons and CD SPs. The current study not only demonstrates a feasible way to acquire near-UV emission from all-inorganic Q-LEDs, but also provides an effective strategy to enhance the EL intensity of these QD light emitters, which can further be extended to other types of light-emitting devices to improve EL efficiency.