Enhancement of photoluminescence of ZnO with aluminium nanoparticles

Abstract : Future nanophotonic devices will heavily rely on efficient and ultra-compact light sources. In conventional lasers, the down-limit of the active medium is typically half the operating wavelength, leading to a minimum device size of a few hundreds of nm. In order to break this limit it has been shown that coupling the active medium (semiconductor alloys) with plasmonic nanostructures allows for the confinement of the optical energy into smaller volumes. Zinc oxide and aluminium is a very promising combination for plasmon-assisted devices in the near UV and coupling mechanisms between excitons and plasmons in optimized hybrid structures has still to be deeply studied.