Plasmon-inducing enhancement for multi-band light emission from ZnO film via periodic ordered Ag nanoparticles

In this article, we report the fabrication of two-dimensional periodic nanostructures of Ag nanoparticles and investigate the effects of the capped Ag nanostructure on the light-emitting properties of ZnO in detail. The experimental data clearly reveal that the light-emitting properties of the periodic Ag/ZnO nanostructures were very different from those of the ZnO films capped with random Ag islands. In particular, not only the near-band-edge emission but also the visible emissions of ZnO was enhanced significantly in the photoluminescence spectra for the periodic Ag/ZnO nanostructures, which may result from the multi surface plasmon modes excited by the periodic nanostructures of Ag/ZnO.