Flexible Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Vertical Nitride Nanowires

International audienceWe demonstrate large area fully flexible blue LEDs based on core/shell InGaN/GaN nanowires grown by MOCVD. The fabrication relies on polymer encapsulation, nanowire lift-off and contacting using silver nanowire transparent electrodes. The LEDs exhibit rectifying behavior with a light-up voltage around 3 V. The devices show no electro-luminescence degradation neither under multiple bending down to 3 mm curvature radius nor in time for more than one month storage in ambient conditions without any protecting encapsulation. Fully transparent flexible LEDs with high optical transmittance are also fabricated. Finally, a two-color flexible LED emitting in the green and blue spectral ranges is demonstrated combining two layers of InGaN/GaN nanowires with different In contents. F lexible light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are today a topic of intense research, motivated by their numerous economically relevant applications (e.g., rollable displays, wearable intelligent electronics, lightning, and so forth). Presently, flexible devices mainly use organic materials integrated on lightweight and flexible plastic substrates. Thanks to the flexibility, relative ease of processing, compatibility with various flexible substrates, and their low cost, organic LEDs (OLEDs) are today the key technology for flexible displays. In the past decades, the OLED performance has been tremendously improved. 1−4 However, they still face the issue of a poor time stability caused by the degradation of the electrical conductivity of the organic layers and of the interface degradation in the active region. 5−7 Especially, OLEDs present limitations in the short wavelength range, which has a detrimental influence on the color balance of the displays. Indeed, blue OLEDs suffer from a rather low luminance (around 10

Polarization Properties of Single Quantum Dots in Nanowires

We study the absorption and emission polarization of single semiconductor quantum dots in semiconductor nanowires. We show that the polarization of light absorbed or emitted by a nanowire quantum dot strongly depends on the orientation of the nanowire with respect to the directions along which light is incident or emitted. Light is preferentially linearly polarized when directed perpendicular to the nanowire elongation. In contrast, the degree of linear polarization is low for light directed along the nanowire. This result is vital for photonic applications based on intrinsic properties of quantum dots, such as generation of entangled photons. As an example, we demonstrate optical access to the spin states of a single nanowire quantum dot.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

InGaN/GaN core/shell nanowires for visible to ultraviolet range photodetection

International audienceWe report on the fabrication and characterization of single nitride nanowire visible-to-ultraviolet p-n photodetec-tors. Nitride nanowires containing 30 InGaN/GaN radial quantum wells with 18% indium fraction were grown by catalyst-free metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy. Single nanowires were contacted using optical lithography. As expected for a radial p-n junction, the current-voltage (I-V) curves of single wire detectors show a rectifying behavior in the dark and a photocurrent under illumination. The detectors present a response in the visible to UV spectral range starting from 2.8 eV. The peak responsivity is 0.17 A/W at 3.36 eV. The on-off switching time under square light pulses is found to be below 0.1 sec

Substrate-Free InGaN/GaN Nanowire Light-Emitting Diodes

International audienceWe report on the demonstration of substrate-freenanowire /polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane light emitting diodes (LEDs). Metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE)-grown InGaN/GaN core−shell nanowires were encapsulated into PDMS layer. After metal deposition to p-GaN, a thick PDMS cap layer was spin-coated and the membrane was manually peeled from the sapphire substrate, flipped upside down onto a steel holder, and transparent ITO contact to n-GaN was deposited. The fabricated LEDs demonstrate rectifying diode characteristics. For the electroluminescence (EL) measurements the samples were manually bonded using silver paint.The EL spectra measured at different applied voltages demonstrate a blue-shift with the current increase. This shift is explained by the current injection into the InGaN areas of the active region with different average Indium content

Visualising highly localised luminescence in GaN/AlN heterostructures in nanowires

The optical properties of a stack of GaN/AlN quantum discs (QDiscs) in a GaN nanowire have been studied by spatially resolved cathodoluminescence (CL) at the nanoscale (nanoCL) using a Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) operating in spectrum imaging mode. For the electron beam excitation in the QDisc region, the luminescence signal is highly localized with spatial extension as low as 5 nm due to the high band gap difference between GaN and AlN. This allows for the discrimination between the emission of neighbouring QDiscs and for evidencing the presence of lateral inclusions, about 3 nm thick and 20 nm long rods (quantum rods, QRods), grown unintentionally on the nanowire sidewalls. These structures, also observed by STEM dark-field imaging, are proven to be optically active in nanoCL, emitting at similar, but usually shorter, wavelengths with respect to most QDiscs. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down

Homogeneous linewidth of the intraband transition at 1.55µm in GaN/AlN quantum dots.

PosterWe present homogeneous linewidth measurements of the intraband transition at 1.55 m in GaN/AlN quantum dots by means of non-linear spectral hole-burning experiments. The square-root dependence of the differential transmission signal with the incident pump power reveals the importance of electron-electron scattering in the population relaxation dynamics. We find on the contrary that this scattering process plays a minor role in the coherence relaxation dynamics since the homogeneous linewidth of 15 meV at 5K does not depend on the incident pump power. This suggests the predominance of other dephasing mechanisms such as spectral diffusion, and temperature-dependent measurements support this hypothesi

A CALCULATION OF SEMI-EMPIRICAL ONE-ELECTRON WAVE FUNCTIONS FOR MULTI-ELECTRON ATOMS USED FOR ELEMENTARY PROCESS SIMULATION IN NONLOCAL PLASMA

Subject of Research. The paper deals with development outcomes for creation method of one-electron wave functions of complex atoms, relatively simple, symmetrical for all atom electrons and free from hard computations. The accuracy and resource intensity of the approach are focused on systematic calculations of cross sections and rate constants of elementary processes of inelastic collisions of atoms or molecules with electrons (ionization, excitation, excitation transfer, and others). Method. The method is based on a set of two iterative processes. At the first iteration step the Schrödinger equation was solved numerically for the radial parts of the electron wave functions in the potential of the atomic core self-consistent field. At the second iteration step the new approximationfor the atomic core field is created that uses found solutions for all one-electron wave functions. The solution optimization for described multiparameter problem is achieved by the use of genetic algorithm. The suitability of the developed method was verified by comparing the calculation results with numerous data on the energies of atoms in the ground and excited states. Main Results. We have created the run-time version of the program for creation of sets of one-electron wave functions and calculation of the cross sections and constants of collisional transition rates in the first Born approximation. The priori available information about binding energies of the electrons for any many-particle system for creation of semi-empirical refined solutions for the one-electron wave functions can be considered at any step of this procedure. Practical Relevance. The proposed solution enables a simple and rapid preparation of input data for the numerical simulation of nonlocal gas discharge plasma. The approach is focused on the calculation of discharges in complex gas mixtures requiring inclusion in the model of a large number of elementary collisional and radiation processes involving heavy particles in different quantum states

Flexible White Light Emitting Diodes Based on Nitride Nanowires and Nanophosphors

International audienceWe report the first demonstration of a flexible white phosphor-converted light emitting diodes (LEDs) based on p-n junction core/shell nitride nanowires. GaN nanowires containing 7 radial In 0.2 Ga 0.8 N/GaN quantum wells were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on a sapphire substrate by a catalyst-free approach. To fabricate the flexible LED, the nanowires are embedded into a phosphor-doped polymer matrix, peeled off from the growth substrate and contacted using flexible and transparent silver nanowire mesh. The electroluminescence of a flexible device presents a cool-white color with a spectral distribution covering a broad spectral range from 400 to 700 nm. Mechanical bending stress down to a curvature radius of 5 mm doesnot yieldany degradation of the LED performance. The maximal measured external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the white LED is 9.3% and the wall plug efficiency is 2.4%

Nanometer Scale Spectral Imaging of Quantum Emitters in nanowires and Its Correlation to Their Atomically Resolved Structure

International audienceWe report the spectral imaging in the UV to visible range with nanometer scale resolu-tion of closely packed GaN/AlN quantum discs in individual nanowires using an improved custom-made cathodoluminescence system. We demonstrate the possibility to measure full spectral features of individual quantum emitters as small as one nanometer and separated from each others by only few nanometers, and the ability to correlate their optical properties to their size, measured with atomic resolution. The direct correlation between the quantum disc size and emission wavelength allows us to evidence the quantum confined Stark effect leading to an emission below the bulk GaN band gap for discs thicker than 2.6 nm. Helped with simula-tions, we show that the internal electric field in the studied quantum discs is smaller than what is expected in the quantum well case. We evidence a clear dispersion of the emission wave-lengths of different quantum discs of identical size but different position along the wire. This dispersion is systematically correlated to a change of the diameter of the AlN shell coating the wire, and is thus attributed to the related strain variations along the wire. The present work opens the way both for fundamental studies of quantum confinement in closely packed quan-tum emitters and for characterizations of optoelectronic devices presenting carrier localization on the nanometer scale

Correlated optical and structural analyses of individual GaAsP/GaP core–shell nanowires

International audienc