Hydrothermal growth and luminescent properties of nonpolar α-plane (11-20) ZnCdO films for light-emitting diodes

摘要

Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Nonpolara-plane ZnCdO film has been grown by hydrothermal method.•Material properties of ZnCdO films with various Cd contents have been investigated.•Nonpolar n-type ZnCdO/p-type GaN heterojunction LED has been demonstrated.AbstractNonpolara-plane ZnCdO films have been obtained ona-plane GaN using a simple low-cost hydrothermal growth method at the low temperature of 80 °C. The morphological, structural, optical, and electrical properties ofa-plane ZnCdO films with various Cd contents have been investigated and compared. The photoluminescence peak of thea-plane Zn0.957Cd0.043O film, was observed to be centered at 429 nm at 25 °C. We demonstrated a heterostructure light-emitting diode (LED) using nonpolar n-type Zn0.957Cd0.043O/p-type GaN films. The rectifying behavior of the current-voltage characteristics was observed with a turn-on voltage of 5 V. The electroluminescence of the LED showed emission peaks including 430 nm, which indicates the near-band-edge emission ofa-plane Zn0.957Cd0.043O at 25 °C.