2013/01/22 by Qing Yang, Ying Liu, Caofeng Pan +3 · 215 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Carrier generation and recombination #Composite material #Current density #Diode #GaN-based semiconductor devices and materials #Light-emitting diode #Materials science #Nanostructure #Nanotechnology #Nanowire #Optoelectronics #Polymer #Quantum efficiency #Semiconductor #Ultraviolet #Ultraviolet light #ZnO doping and properties
paper · doi:10.1021/nl304163n
published in Nano Letters 13(2), 607-613 (American Chemical Society)
openalex publication_date 2013/01/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
ZnO nanowire inorganic/organic hybrid ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have attracted considerable attention as they not only combine the high flexibility of polymers with the structural and chemical stability of inorganic nanostructures but also have a higher light extraction efficiency than thin film structures. However, up to date, the external quantum efficiency of UV LED based on ZnO nanostructures has been limited by a lack of efficient methods to achieve a balance between electron contributed current and hole contributed current that reduces the nonradiative recombination at interface. Here we demonstrate that the piezo-phototronic effect can largely enhance the efficiency of a hybridized inorganic/organic LED made of a ZnO nanowire/p-polymer structure, by trimming the electron current to match the hole current and increasing the localized hole density near the interface through a carrier channel created by piezoelectric polarization charges on the ZnO side. The external efficiency of the hybrid LED was enhanced by at least a factor of 2 after applying a proper strain, reaching 5.92%. This study offers a new concept for increasing organic LED efficiency and has a great potential for a wide variety of high-performance flexible optoelectronic devices.