Localized surface plasmon-enhanced electroluminescence from ZnO-based heterojunction light-emitting diodes

We demonstrate the surface plasmon (SP) enhanced n-ZnO/AlN/p-GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by inserting the Ag nanoparticles (NPs) between the ZnO and AlN layers. The ultraviolet/violet near band edge emission of the device is significantly enhanced while the green defect-related emission is modestly suppressed compared to the LEDs without Ag NPs. The red-shift of electroluminescence (EL) peak and the reduced photoluminescence decay lifetime of ZnO suggest that the improved EL performance of the device with Ag NPs is attributed to the resonant coupling between excitons in ZnO and localized SPs in Ag NPs. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3658392]