Fabrication and characterization of GaP/polymer nanocomposites for advanced light emissive device structures

GaP nanoparticles have been prepared using white P and a mild aqueous synthesis at decreased temperature followed by ultrasonication and stored as the suspension in water–ethanol mixture. They were characterized by standard methods of X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, Raman light scattering, and photoluminescence. Properties of GaP nanoparticles were compared with industrial and specially grown perfect GaP single crystals. It was shown that the GaP nanoparticles in suspension are the most suitable for high quality GaP/polymers nanocomposites because only they are uniform with dimensions of about 10 nm which is optimal for appearance of the pronounced quantum confinement effect. Polyglycidyl methacrylate (PGMA), polyglycidyl methacrylate-co-polyoligoethyleneglycol methacrylate (PGMA-co-POEGMA), and biphenyl vinyl ether (BPVE) polymers were used to prepare GaP polymer nanocomposites. The thickness of the polymer nanocomposite film was about 250–300 nm defined from AFM scratch experiment. The resulting nanocomposites yielded a bright luminescence at room temperature in a broad band with the maximum ranging from 2.5 to 3.2 eV and showed pronounced quantum confinement effects and other interesting and important for application phenomena leading to dramatic 1 eV expansion of GaP luminescence to the UV spectral region.