Near ultraviolet light emitting diode composed of n-GaN/ZnO coaxial nanorod heterostructures on a p-GaN layer

The authors report on the fabrication and characteristics of near ultraviolet nanorod light emitting diodes (LEDs) composed of n-GaN/ZnO nanorod heterostructures on p-GaN substrates. The nanorod LEDs consist of the vertically aligned n-GaN/ZnO coaxial nanorod arrays grown on a p-GaN substrate. The LEDs demonstrated strong near ultraviolet emission at room temperature. The nanorod LEDs were turned on a forward-bias voltage of 5 V, and exhibited a large light emitting area. From electroluminescent spectra, dominant emission peaks were observed at 2.96 and 3.24 eV for an applied current of 2 mA. The origins of the strong and large area light emission are also discussed in terms of enhanced carrier injection from n-GaN nanostructures to p-GaN substrates.