High brightness light emitting diode based on single ZnO microwire

•The growth of ZnO microwires is controllable and repetitive.•The device structure of LED is based on the single ZnO microwire, and the device is simple and is easy to obtain.•The UV emission originating from single ZnO microwire is dominated in EL spectrum.

The ZnO microwires were synthesized repetitively via chemical vapor deposition method. The high power light emitting diode based on the single ZnO microwire/p-GaN heterojunction was realized. A strong ultraviolet emission accompanied by a relatively weak defects-related emission was observed at room temperature photoluminescence spectra of single ZnO microwire. The I-V curve of the heterojunction diode showed obvious rectifying characteristics with a turn-on voltage of about 7 V. Under the forward injection current of 1.1 mA, the ultraviolet electroluminescence centered at 389 nm wavelength could be obtained based on the single ZnO microwire/p-GaN heterojunction diode.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (61KB)Download full-size image