Polystyrene-catalytic indium–tin–oxide nanorods grown on green light-emitting diodes for enhancing light extraction

Abstract A novel technique for fabricating indium–tin–oxide (ITO) nanorods (NRs) on hexagonal-pyramid-surface green vertical light-emitting diodes (VLEDs) is demonstrated using electron-beam deposition with polystyrene spheres catalysis. The ITO NRs have high optical transmittance (>90%) in green wavelength and good crystal quality with a cubic structure. The VLED with ITO NRs has a 31% enhancement of light output power at 200 mA, compared with those without ITO NRs. Finite-difference time-domain simulations suggest that the power enhancement is attributed to the gradient refractive indices of the ITO NRs, and that the light extraction enhancement is caused by changes in ITO NR heights.