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Letter
Nature Materials 3, 601 - 605 (2004)
Published online: 22 August 2004 | doi:10.1038/nmat1198
Subject Categories: Electronic materials | Semiconductors | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Nanoscale materials
Surface-plasmon-enhanced light emitters based on InGaN quantum wells
Koichi Okamoto1, Isamu Niki1,2, Alexander Shvartser1, Yukio Narukawa2, Takashi Mukai2 & Axel Scherer1
Abstract
Since 1993, InGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been improved and commercialized1, 2, but these devices have not fulfilled their original promise as solid-state replacements for light bulbs as their light-emission efficiencies have been limited2. Here we describe a method to enhance this efficiency through the energy transfer between quantum wells (QWs) and surface plasmons (SPs). SPs can increase the density of states and the spontaneous emission rate in the semiconductor3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and lead to the enhancement of light emission by SP–QW coupling10, 11. Large enhancements of the internal quantum efficiencies (
int) were measured when silver or aluminium layers were deposited 10 nm above an InGaN light-emitting layer, whereas no such enhancements were obtained from gold-coated samples. Our results indicate that the use of SPs would lead to a new class of very bright LEDs, and highly efficient solid-state light sources.
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