The semiconductor ZnO has gained substantial interest in the research community in part because of its large exciton binding energy (60meV) which could lead to lasing action based on exciton recombination even above room temperature. Even though research focusing on ZnO goes back many decades, the renewed interest is fueled by availability of high-quality substrates and reports of p-type conduction and ferromagnetic behavior when doped with transitions metals, both of which remain controversial. It is this renewed interest in ZnO which forms the basis of this review. As mentioned already, ZnO is not new to the semiconductor field, with studies of its lattice parameter dating back to 1935 by Bunn [Proc. Phys. Soc. London 47, 836 (1935)], studies of its vibrational properties with Raman scattering in 1966 by Damen et al. [Phys. Rev. 142, 570 (1966)], detailed optical studies in 1954 by Mollwo [Z. Angew. Phys. 6, 257 (1954)], and its growth by chemical-vapor transport in 1970 by Galli and Coker [Appl. Phys. ...

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A comprehensive review of zno materials and devices

Lanthanide ions possess fascinating optical properties and their discovery, first industrial uses and present high technological applications are largely governed by their interaction with light. Lighting devices (economical luminescent lamps, light emitting diodes), television and computer displays, optical fibres, optical amplifiers, lasers, as well as responsive luminescent stains for biomedical analysis, medical diagnosis, and cell imaging rely heavily on lanthanide ions. This critical review has been tailored for a broad audience of chemists, biochemists and materials scientists; the basics of lanthanide photophysics are highlighted together with the synthetic strategies used to insert these ions into mono- and polymetallic molecular edifices. Recent advances in NIR-emitting materials, including liquid crystals, and in the control of luminescent properties in polymetallic assemblies are also presented. (210 references.)

Taking advantage of luminescent lanthanide ions

Recent startling interest for lanthanide luminescence is stimulated by the continuously expanding need for luminescent materials meeting the stringent requirements of telecommunication, lighting, electroluminescent devices, (bio-)analytical sensors and bio-imaging set-ups. This critical review describes the latest developments in (i) the sensitization of near-infrared luminescence, (ii) “soft” luminescent materials (liquid crystals, ionic liquids, ionogels), (iii) electroluminescent materials for organic light emitting diodes, with emphasis on white light generation, and (iv) applications in luminescent bio-sensing and bio-imaging based on time-resolved detection and multiphoton excitation (500 references).

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Lanthanide luminescence for functional materials and bio-sciences

The term photonic crystals appears because of the analogy between electron waves in crystals and the light waves in artificial periodic dielectric structures. During the recent years the investigation of one-, two-and three-dimensional periodic structures has attracted a widespread attention of the world optics community because of great potentiality of such structures in advanced applied optical fields. The interest in periodic structures has been stimulated by the fast development of semiconductor technology that now allows the fabrication of artificial structures, whose period is comparable with the wavelength of light in the visible and infrared ranges.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6354/16969/00781867.pdf

Photonic crystals

A large amount of work world-wide has been directed towards obtaining an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of porous Si. Much progress has been made following the demonstration in 1990 that highly porous material could emit very efficient visible photoluminescence at room temperature. Since that time, all features of the structural, optical and electronic properties of the material have been subjected to in-depth scrutiny. It is the purpose of the present review to survey the work which has been carried out and to detail the level of understanding which has been attained. The key importance of crystalline Si nanostructures in determining the behaviour of porous Si is highlighted. The fabrication of solid-state electroluminescent devices is a prominent goal of many studies and the impressive progress in this area is described.

The structural and luminescence properties of porous silicon

The hole effective-mass Hamiltonian for the semiconductors of wurtzite structure is established, and the effective-mass parameters of GaN and AlxGa1-xN are given. Besides the asymmetry in the z and x, y directions, the linear term of the momentum operator in the Hamiltonian is essential in determining the valence band structure, which is different from that of the zinc-blende structure. The binding energies of acceptor states are calculated by solving strictly the effective-mass equations. The binding energies of donor and acceptor for wurtzite GaN are 20 and 131, 97 meV, respectively, which are inconsistent with the recent experimental results. It is proposed that there are two kinds of acceptors in wurtzite GaN. One kind is the general acceptor such as C, substituting N, which satisfies the effective-mass theory, and the other includes Mg, Zn, Cd etc., the binding energy of which deviates from that given by the effective-mass theory. Experimentally, wurtzite GaN was grown by the MBE method, and the PL spectra were measured. Three main peaks are assigned to the DA transitions from the two kinds of acceptor. Some of the transitions were identified as coming from the cubic phase of GaN, which appears randomly within the predominantly hexagonal material. The binding energy of acceptor in ALN is about 239, 158 meV, that in AlxGa1-xN alloys (x approximate to 0.2) is 147, 111 meV, close to that in GaN. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Energy band and acceptor binding energy of GaN and AlxGa1-xN

Plasmonic-based device offers novel range of applications in optoelectronics. It allows strong coupling between light and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) meanwhile different methods to improve light-matter interaction have been recently the focus of many studies. In present study, we fabricated large area, 10 × 10 mm2, ruled grating in the metal/dielectric interface that has enhanced plasmonic coupling efficiency. It is more efficient than planer metal/dielectric interface, which cannot optimally excite the light because of weak coupling between incident light and resonant surface modes. The grating pattern in the interface is fabricated through photolithography technique using optical interference method on photosensitive layer, followed by metal deposition (Fig.1). We applied the large area grating pattern on the top of photonic cavity to measure cavity mode-SPP coupling and confirmed neo Rubbi-splitting on the reflection light measurement. The grating function at the metal/dielectric interface to improve cavity mode-SPP coupling was quite acceptable; in addition, neo Rubbi-splitting was explicitly observed.

Fabrication of Large Area Plasmonic Grating using Laser Interference

A hexagonal lattice photonic crystal was fabricated inside the metallic microcavity. And a thin film of Alq3 was incorporated inside the textured cavity as an active medium. The microcavity is designed such that the modified photonic modes due to the textured structure can couple to the excited electronic states of Alq3. This leads to changes in the emission characteristics of Alq3. From the angle-resolved transmission (ARTR) results, the photonic bandgap was observed at all angles from normal incident to 60°. The presence of surface plasmon (SP) was observed in both TM and TE modes of the transmission. Compare to the bulk Alq3 photoluminescence spectrum, significant modification of the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum was observed in the angle-resolved photoluminescence (ARPL). The photoluminescence spectra showed clear suppression in luminescence intensity for the range inside the photonic bandgap. We use decouple approximation for the standing wave modes and derive the photonic waveguide characteristics for two-dimensional textured metallic microcavities. The theoretical result is in good agreement to the experimental result.

Hexagonal Lattice Photonic Crystal in Active Metallic Microcavity

We proposed a compact, low-cost and alignment-free plasmonic dark field microscopy and demonstrated its high contrast imaging capability through utilizing chip-scale integrated plasmonic structures to substitute for conventional condenser optics.

Fluorescent Dye and OLED Based Plasmonic Dark Field Microscopy

Microcavity organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) have attracted great attention because they can reduce the width of emission spectra from organic materials enhance brightness and achieve multipeak emission from the same material. In this work, we have fabricated microcavity OLEDs with widely used organic materials, such as N,N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenylbenzidine (NPB) as a hole transport layer and tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) (Alq) as emitting and electron transporting layer. These organic materials are sandwiched either between two thick silver mirrors or one thin copper and one thick silver mirrors. The influence of total cavity length (from 164 nm to 243 nm) and the cavity Q-factor to the emission behavior has been investigated. In all cases, an OLED without bottom mirror, i.e. with the organic materials sandwiched between indium tin oxide and a thick silver mirror, has been fabricated for comparison. We have characterized the devices with photoluminescence, electroluminescence, and reflectance measurements. Multiple peaks have been observed for some devices at larger viewing angles

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Kok Wai Cheah

Papers

Energy band and acceptor binding energy of GaN and AlxGa1-xN

Fabrication of Large Area Plasmonic Grating using Laser Interference

Hexagonal Lattice Photonic Crystal in Active Metallic Microcavity

Fluorescent Dye and OLED Based Plasmonic Dark Field Microscopy

Influence of Layer Thickness to the Emission Spectra in Microcavity Organic Light Emitting Diodes