Current-Induced Thermal Tunneling Electroluminescence in a Single Highly Compensated Semiconductor Microrod

Cheng Xing; Wei Liu; Qiang Wang; Chunxiang Xu; Yinzhou Yan; Yijian Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101210

Current-Induced Thermal Tunneling Electroluminescence in a Single Highly Compensated Semiconductor Microrod

iScience. 2020 Jun 26;23(6):101210. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101210. Epub 2020 May 28.

Authors

Cheng Xing¹, Wei Liu², Qiang Wang³, Chunxiang Xu², Yinzhou Yan⁴, Yijian Jiang¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Laser Engineering, Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology, Beijing 102617, China.
⁴ Institute of Laser Engineering, Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China; Key Laboratory of Trans-scale Laser Manufacturing Technology (Beijing University of Technology), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100124 China; Beijing Engineering Research Center of Laser Technology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China; Beijing Colleges and Universities Engineering Research Center of Advanced Laser Manufacturing, Beijing 100124, China. Electronic address: yyan@bjut.edu.cn.

Abstract

Here we demonstrate a novel and robust mechanism, termed as "current-induced Joule heating activated thermal tunneling excitation," to achieve electroluminescence (EL) by the hot electron-hole-pair recombination in a single highly compensated semiconductor microrod. The radiative luminescence is electrically excited under ambient conditions. The current-induced Joule heating reduces the thermal tunneling excitation threshold of voltage down to 8 V and increases the EL efficiency ~4.4-fold at 723 K. We interpret this novel phenomenon by a thermal tunneling excitation model corrected by electric-induced Joule heating effect. The mechanism is confirmed via theoretical calculation and experimental demonstration, for the first time. The color-tunable EL emission is also achieved by regulation of donor concentration. This work opens up new opportunities for design of novel multi-color light-emitting devices by homogeneous defect-engineered semiconductors in future.

Keywords: Devices; Materials Design; Optical Materials.