Abstract
This issue of physica status solidi (pps) contains contributed papers based on the invited talks at the 2nd Workshop on “Impurity Based Electroluminescent Devices and Materials” (IBEDM 2006) held in Nanki‐Shirahama, Wakayama, Japan, on 17–20 October 2006. The 1st Workshop “Impurity Based Electroluminescence in Wide Bandgap Semiconductors” was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, in April 2003 and was hosted by Dr. John Zavada, U.S. Army Research Office, and Prof. Andrew Steckl, University of Cincinnati. About 40 people from USA, Europe and Japan participated in the 1st Workshop and many useful and pleasant discussions took place. Owing to the success of the Santa Fe Workshop, the organizers came to an agreement to hold the 2nd Workshop in Japan in order to give greater opportunity for scientists in Asia to attend.
The scope of IBEDM 2006 included various types of impurity based electroluminescent devices fabricated from semiconductors, oxides, inorganic and organic materials, as well as novel materials such as nano‐particles and nano‐wires. The following topics were covered at the workshop:
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Growth and structural properties of rare earth doped materials (semiconductors, oxides, organic materials).
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Basic optical properties of rare earth doped semiconductors.
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Optical processes of excitation and energy transfer in impurity doped materials.
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Luminescence of nano‐particles and nano‐wires doped with rare earth elements.
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Device structures: Schottky, impact excitation, e‐h recombination.
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Full color electroluminescent materials and devices.
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Novel inorganic and organic luminescent materials and devices.
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Phosphor materials for full color and white color displays.
We had 36 participants (US/Mexico, Europe, Asia/Japan), and 25 valuable presentations (all invited talks) by the top researchers from the world in this field. We had also two evening sessions, where hot topic discussions on impurity based silicon and widegap semiconductors lasted until late at night. All the participants stayed in the same hotel and spent four days together. We think that the concentrated discussions were very fruitful and gave the participants exciting new insights into the understanding of the luminescent devices and materials based on impurities.
The papers contributed to this special issue of pss are based on the presentations and discussions given at IBEDM 2006. Before closing the Workshop, we came to an agreement that this Workshop was very valuable and that a 3rd Workshop should take place in near future. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)