UCSD Researchers Make ZnO Nanowire LEDs Possible
Source/Type: News - Staff reports

January 3, 2007... While zinc oxide thin film LEDs have been around for years, until a recent advance by researchers at the University of California San Diego, LEDs made from ZnO nanowires have been impossible. Researchers from the University of California San Diego have succeeded in developing a way to transport positive charges or “holes” in zinc oxide (ZnO) through what they are calling ZnO “p-type nanowires”, according to an article in the journal, Nano Letters. Attempts to create LEDs from ZnO nanowires have failed because researchers have until now not been able to create ZnO nanowires with charge carrying holes. Making negatively charged nanowires has not been a problem. In an LED, when an electron meets a hole, the electron falls into a lower energy level and releases energy in the form of a photon of light. In a paper published online in the journal, Nano Letters, Deli Wang, an electrical and computer engineering professor from UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering and his colleagues at UCSD and Peking University, reported successful synthesis of high quality p-type zinc oxide nanowires.

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