Proposal and verification of a new visible light emitter based on wide band gap II-VI semiconductors

Abstract

We propose a new device structure for obtaining visible light emission from wide band gap semiconductors. This heterojunction structure avoids ohmic contacting problems by using only the doping types which tend to occur naturally in II-VI semiconductors, while using a novel injection scheme to obtain efficient minority carrier injection into the wider band gap semiconductor. To verify this proposal we have fabricated green light emitting structures using n-CdSe and p-ZnTe regions separated by a graded MgxCd1−xSe injection region. Room temperature electroluminescence spectra from these devices demonstrate the effectiveness of the injection scheme, while the current-voltage characteristics show the merits of avoiding difficult ohmic contacts. We further show how the structure can be extended to blue wavelengths and beyond by opening up the band gap of the ZnTe recombination region with a MgyZn1−yTe alloy.