Tailoring the luminescence of anodized aluminum oxide with atomic layer deposited ZnO thin films

The combination of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film and anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) with the assistance of atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique is performed to investigate into the luminescence tailoring effect and mechanism of such a light emitting device, considering the strong luminescence of both ZnO and AAO nanostructures. Nanoscale ZnO thin films were deposited by ALD into the nanopores of AAO template to fabricate large surface-to-volume ratio device with good mechanical and chemical stability. The photoluminescence of large surface-to-volume ratio nanostructured ZnO/AAO system exhibits tunable broad band light emission from ultraviolet to infrared. Given the investigated mechanism of this system, tailoring of luminescence can be achieved and possible applications are proposed according to experimental observations.