Enhancement of Visible Photoluminescence in ZnO/Ag Thin Films using Nanograting Structures

Abstract

ZnO/Ag thin films were deposited on grating structures that were fabricated by nanoimprint lithography. The grating structures exhibited multiple peak features in visible-range photoluminescence (PL), whose intensity was much larger than that of planar thin films. The grating structures also exhibited quite distinctive features, such as several dips in the reflectance, from the planar samples. All of these findings could be understood as a result of plasmon-exciton interaction. Thus, the PL peaks, well matched with the reflectance dips, represent the excited surface plasmon polariton energies, determined by the grating periodicity. Copyright © 2010 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.