Electrically pumped random lasing from FTO/porous insulator/n-ZnO/p(+)-Si devices

Electrically pumped random lasing (RL) has been realized in FTO/porous insulator/n-ZnO/p(+)-Si devices. It is demonstrated that RL originates from the confining and recurrent scattering of light in the random cavities within the insulating layer, which are formed due to the glow discharge. The glow discharge also induces the observed negative differential resistance (NDR) effect following the normal I-V characteristics. The results present a new strategy to realize electrically pumped RL in ZnO-based metal-insulator-semiconductor device by simply modifying the morphology of the insulating layer.