Excitonic electroluminescence from ZnO-based heterojunction light emitting diodes

This work reports on the fabrication and characteristics of n-ZnO/p-GaN and n-ZnO/n-MgZnO/n-ZnO/p-GaN heterojunction light emitting diodes (LEDs). Both devices exhibited diode-like rectifying current-voltage characteristics. Room temperature electroluminescence (EL) spectra for both LEDs consisted of dominant emission at 375 nm and two weaker bands centred at 415 nm and 525 nm, which were attributed to ZnO excitonic transition and defect-related emissions from GaN and ZnO, respectively. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the single heterojunction required a higher injection current to obtain an excitonic EL than that for the n-ZnO/n-MgZnO/n-ZnO/p-GaN LEDs. This indicated that the insertion of the MgZnO layer confined the injection carriers and thus increased the intensity of excitonic emission in the ZnO active region.