In this article, the electroluminescence (EL) spectra of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanotubes/p-GaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) annealed in different ambients (argon, air, oxygen, and nitrogen) have been investigated. The ZnO nanotubes by aqueous chemical growth (ACG) technique on p-GaN substrates were obtained. The as-grown ZnO nanotubes were annealed in different ambients at 600°C for 30 min. The EL investigations showed that air, oxygen, and nitrogen annealing ambients have strongly affected the deep level emission bands in ZnO. It was concluded from the EL investigation that more than one deep level defect is involved in the red emission appearing between 620 and 750 nm and that the red emission in ZnO can be attributed to oxygen interstitials (O_i) appearing in the range from 620 nm (1.99 eV) to 690 nm (1.79 eV), and to oxygen vacancies (V_o) appearing in the range from 690 nm (1.79 eV) to 750 nm (1.65 eV). The annealing ambients, especially the nitrogen ambient, were also found to greatly influence the color-rendering properties and increase the CRI of the as - grown LEDs from 87 to 96.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods grown by vapor-liquid-solid catalytic growth method were irradiated with 2-MeV helium (He+) ions. The fabricated LEDs were irradiated with fluencies of approximately 2 × 1013 ions/cm2 and approximately 4 × 1013 ions/cm2. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the morphology of the irradiated samples is not changed. The as-grown and He+-irradiated LEDs showed rectifying behavior with the same I-V characteristics. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements showed that there is a blue shift of approximately 0.0347 and 0.082 eV in the near-band emission (free exciton) and green emission of the irradiated ZnO nanorods, respectively. It was also observed that the PL intensity of the near-band emission was decreased after irradiation of the samples. The electroluminescence (EL) measurements of the fabricated LEDs showed that there is a blue shift of 0.125 eV in the broad green emission after irradiation and the EL intensity of violet emission approximately centered at 398 nm nearly disappeared after irradiations. The color-rendering properties show a small decrease in the color-rendering indices of 3% after 2 MeV He+ ions irradiation.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and especially in the nanostructure form is currently being intensively investigated world wide for the possibility of developing different new photonic devices. We will here present our recent findings on the controlled low temperature chemical growth of ZnO nanorods (NRs) on different large area substrates. Many different heterojunctions of ZnO NRs and p-substrates including those of crystalline e.g. p-GaN, p-SiC or amorphous nature e.g. p-polymer coated plastic and p-polymer coated paper will be shown. Moreover, the effect of the p-electrode of these heterojunctions on tuning the emitted wavelength and changing the light quality will be discussed. An example using ZnO NR/p-GaN will be shown and the electrical and electro-optical characteristics will be analyzed. For these heterojunctions the effect of post growth annealing and its effect on the electroluminescence (EL) spectrum will be shown. Finally, intrinsic white light emitting diodes based on ZnO NRs on foldable and disposable amorphous substrates (plastic and paper) will also be presented.