ZnO nanorod/GaN light-emitting diodes: the origin of yellow and violet emission bands under reverse and forward bias

Abstract

ZnO nanorods have been prepared by electrodeposition under identical conditions on various p-GaN-based thin film structures. The devices exhibited lighting up under both forward and reverse biases, but the turn-on voltage and the emission color were strongly dependent on the p-GaN-based structure used. The origin of different luminescence peaks under forward and reverse bias has been studied by comparing the devices with and without ZnO and by photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence spectroscopy. We found that both yellow-orange emission under reverse bias and violet emission under forward bias, which are commonly attributed to ZnO, actually originate from the p-GaN substrate and/or surface/interface defects. While the absolute brightness of devices without InGaN multiple quantum wells was low, high brightness with luminance exceeding 10 000 cd/m² and tunable emission (from orange at 2.1 V to blue at 2.7 V, with nearly white emission with Commission internationale de l’éclairage (CIE) coordinates (0.30, 0.31) achieved at 2.5 V) was obtained for different devices containing InGaN multiple quantum wells.