Electrically injected hybrid organic/inorganic III-nitride white light-emitting diodes with nonradiative Förster resonance energy transfer

An electrically injected hybrid organic/inorganic III-nitride white light-emitting diode (LED) has been fabricated by using a two-dimensional (2D) microhole array structure. The hybrid LED geometry significantly enhances proximity between the inorganic active-region and the down-converting yellow organic light-emitting polymers (OLEPs), enabling the near-field nonradiative Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) process with high efficiency while retaining excellent electrical characteristics of an unpatterned planar LED. A reduction in the recombination lifetime in the InGaN/GaN blue active region has been observed with the hybrid device, confirming the nonradiative FRET process occurring between the InGaN/GaN blue active region and the yellow organic polymer. This results in a typical FRET efficiency of 16.7%, where the FRET interaction area accounts for approximately 0.64% of the remaining blue-emitting inorganic LED, but enhancing total device efficiency. An optimized white-light EL emission is achieved with typical CIE color coordinates at (0.29, 0.32).