Deep electron and hole traps were studied by admittance spectroscopy (AS) and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) with electrical and optical (ODLTS) injection for GaN-based multi-quantum-well (MQW) light emitting diodes (LEDs) operating in the near-UV (385–390 nm), blue (445 nm), and green (515 nm) spectral regions. AS spectra were dominated by freezing out of Mg acceptors at temperatures around 150 K, by shallow centers in the MQW region, and, for green LEDs, by deeper electron traps with a level near Ec − 0.27 eV located in the MQW region. DLTS spectra showed electron traps with levels Ec − 0.8 eV (NUV), Ec − 0.5 eV (blue), Ec − 0.6 eV (blue and NUV), and Ec − 0.27(green LEDs). In ODLTS, hole traps near Ev + 0.75 eV (NUV), Ev + 0.65 eV (blue), and Ev + 0.45 eV (green LEDs) originating in the quantum well (QW) region were detected (the QW character was confirmed by using excitation light that generated electron-hole pairs only within the QWs). The levels of the electron and hole traps in LED structures differing in the In composition in the QWs were well aligned with respect to the vacuum level.

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Noble metal-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has enabled the simple and efficient detection of trace-amount molecules via significant electromagnetic enhancements at hot spots. However, the small Raman cross-section of various analytes forces the use of a Raman reporter for specific surface functionalization, which is time-consuming and limited to low-molecular-weight analytes. To tackle these issues, a hybrid SERS substrate utilizing Ag as plasmonic structures and GaN as charge transfer enhancement centers is presented. By the conformal printing of Ag nanowires onto GaN nanopillars, a highly sensitive SERS substrate with excellent uniformity can be fabricated. As a result, remarkable SERS performance with a substrate enhancement factor of 1.4 × 10 11 at 10 fM for rhodamine 6G molecules with minimal spot variations can be realized. Furthermore, quantification and multiplexing capabilities without surface treatments are demonstrated by detecting harmful antibiotics in aqueous solutions. This work paves the way for the development of a highly sensitive SERS substrate by constructing complex metal-semiconductor architectures.

The effect of a layer of GaN nanopillars with SiO2 nanoparticles inserted into the n+-GaN contact Layer on the electrical properties, electroluminescence (EL) and photoluminescence (PL), admittance spectra, and deep trap spectra of green multi-quantum-well GaN/InGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on patterned sapphire substrates is reported. The PL and EL intensities for these SiO2 LEDs are measurably enhanced compared with reference to LEDs without the nanopillar sublayer. This correlates with the decrease in the SiO2 LEDs of the concentration of 0.25 eV electron traps and 0.45 eV hole traps, both located in the InGaN QWs.

An N-doped ZnO photocatalyst decorated with carbon quantum dots and active under irradiation with daylight was developed for the degradation of dyes in industrial wastewaters.