Low‐Temperature, Nontoxic Water‐Induced Metal‐Oxide Thin Films and Their Application in Thin‐Film Transistors

Abstract

Here, a simple, nontoxic, and inexpensive “water‐inducement” technique for the fabrication of oxide thin films at low annealing temperatures is reported. For water‐induced (WI) precursor solution, the solvent is composed of water without additional organic additives and catalysts. The thermogravimetric analysis indicates that the annealing temperature can be lowered by prolonging the annealing time. A systematic study is carried out to reveal the annealing condition dependence on the performance of the thin‐film transistors (TFTs). The WI indium‐zinc oxide (IZO) TFT integrated on SiO2 dielectric, annealed at 300 °C for 2 h, exhibits a saturation mobility of 3.35 cm2 V−1 s−1 and an on‐to‐off current ratio of ≈108. Interestingly, through prolonging the annealing time to 4 h, the electrical parameters of IZO TFTs annealed at 230 °C are comparable with the TFTs annealed at 300 °C. Finally, fully WI IZO TFT based on YOx dielectric is integrated and investigated. This TFT device can be regarded as “green electronics” in a true sense, because no organic‐related additives are used during the whole device fabrication process. The as‐fabricated IZO/YOx TFT exhibits excellent electron transport characteristics with low operating voltage (≈1.5 V), small subthreshold swing voltage of 65 mV dec−1 and the mobility in excess of 25 cm2 V−1 s−1.

Synergistic effects of water addition and step heating on the formation of solution-processed zinc tin oxide thin films: towards high-mobility polycrystalline transistors

“…The transfer characteristics of an array of six TFT devices based on ZTO-2W are shown in supplementary data figure S9. The distribution of transfer plots was similar to the previously reported amorphous oxide TFTs [9,47], demonstrating that good device uniformity could be realized in ZTO-2W TFTs. The average μ sat of these ZTO-2W TFTs is 52.5 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , and the I on/off is 2×10 5 .…”

Application of Amorphous Zirconium-Yttrium-Aluminum-Magnesium-Oxide Thin Film with a High Relative Dielectric Constant Prepared by Spin-Coating

“…We surmised that the possible reactions may occur in the system are hydrolysis, condensation, dehydroxylation, oxygen binding, etc., based on the above results and other studies [ 51 , 52 , 53 ]. The possibly reaction Equations (3)–(8) are listed as follows: M 1 (NO 3 ) X ·nH 2 O+ M 2 (NO 3 ) X ·nH 2 O +CH 3 -O-(CH 2 ) 2 -OH → M 1 -OH+ M 2 -(CH 2 ) 2 -O-CH 3 +NO↑+H 2 O↑ M 1 -(CH 2 ) 2 -O-CH 3 +H 2 O+O 2 → M 1 -OH+ CH 3 -O-(CH 2 ) 2 -OH↑ M 1 -(CH 2 ) 2 -O-CH 3 + M 2 -OH+O 2 → M 1 O X + CH 3 -O-(CH 2 ) 2 -OH↑ M 1 -OH+M 2 -OH → M 1 -OH-M 2 +H 2 O M 1 -OH-M 2 +M 1 -OH → M 1 -O-M 2 -M 1 +H 2 O M 1 -OH-M 2 +M 1 -OH → M 1 -O-M 2 -M 1 +H 2 O where M 1 and M 2 equal to metals.…”

Exploring the Leidenfrost Effect for the Deposition of High‐Quality In2O3 Layers via Spray Pyrolysis at Low Temperatures and Their Application in High Electron Mobility Transistors

“…The level of transistor performance, and particularly μ FE , achieved here is significantly higher than previously reported values for In 2 O 3 TFTs prepared by spray pyrolysis at similar temperatures and on the same order of magnitude with the Hall mobility for In 2 O 3 layers grown via spray pyrolysis at 400 °C . Moreover, the obtained μ FE is higher than In 2 O 3 TFTs prepared by spin‐coating at 300 °C, outperformed only by values reported for In 2 O 3 TFTs deposited on the AlOH terminated AlO x dielectric . Finally, we believe that the Leidenfrost‐mediated CVD‐like growth is applicable to different material precursors, and more generally precursor formulations (e.g., based on lower boiling point solvents), and that could one day facilitate further reduction in the process temperature with simultaneous gains in device performance.…”