Dynamically regulated electroluminescence via strain engineering

Abstract

Dynamic regulation of the light-emission wavelength has important scientific significance for developing new electroluminescent devices and expanding the application scope to the fields of lighting, display, sensing, and human–machine interaction. In this work, an electroluminescent device with a dynamically tunable emission wavelength is achieved based on the piezoresistive effect. The tunable range can reach up to 12 nm as the external strain increases from 0% to 0.148%. Also, the luminescence mechanism of the device is systematically analyzed, and is shown to be mainly due to the transition of electrons in the ground state to the excitation state caused by thermal tunneling excitation with the participation of multi-phonons. The shift of the emission wavelength originates from the narrowing of the energy band structure under the tensile strain and the change of the crystal field around the defect centers. This work provides a new, to the best of our knowledge, strategy for the development of wavelength-tunable light-emitting devices.