TY - JOUR
T1 - A Sustainable Approach to Flexible Electronics with Zinc-Tin Oxide Thin-Film Transistors
AU - Fernandes, Cristina
AU - Santa, Ana
AU - Santos, Ângelo
AU - Bahubalindruni, Pydi
AU - Deuermeier, Jonas
AU - Martins, Rodrigo
AU - Fortunato, Elvira
AU - Barquinha, Pedro
N1 - info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/5876/147333/PT#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/716510/EU#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/644631/EU#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/692373/EU#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/685758/EU#
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - Zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) is widely invoked as a promising indium and gallium-free alternative for amorphous oxide semiconductor based thin-film transistors (TFTs). The main bottleneck of this semiconductor material compared to mainstream indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) is centered in the larger processing temperatures required to achieve acceptable performance (>300 °C), not compatible with low-cost flexible substrates. This work reports for the first time flexible amorphous-ZTO TFTs processed at a maximum temperature of 180 °C. Different aspects are explored to obtain performance levels comparable to IGZO devices at these low processing temperatures, such as hydrogen incorporation during ZTO sputtering and integration with a high-κ multilayer/multicomponent dielectric. Close-to-zero turn-on voltage, field-effect mobility ≈5 cm2 V-1 s-1, and subthreshold slope of 0.26 V dec-1 are obtained. Stability under negative-bias-illumination stress is dramatically improved with hydrogen incorporation in ZTO and device performance is insensitive to bending under a radius of curvature of 15 mm. Inverters using the ZTO TFTs enable rail-to-rail operation with supply voltage V DD as low as 5 V, while a differential amplifier with positive feedback loop provides a gain of 17 dB and unity gain frequency of 40 kHz, limited by the large gate-to-source and gate-to-drain overlaps used herein.
AB - Zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) is widely invoked as a promising indium and gallium-free alternative for amorphous oxide semiconductor based thin-film transistors (TFTs). The main bottleneck of this semiconductor material compared to mainstream indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) is centered in the larger processing temperatures required to achieve acceptable performance (>300 °C), not compatible with low-cost flexible substrates. This work reports for the first time flexible amorphous-ZTO TFTs processed at a maximum temperature of 180 °C. Different aspects are explored to obtain performance levels comparable to IGZO devices at these low processing temperatures, such as hydrogen incorporation during ZTO sputtering and integration with a high-κ multilayer/multicomponent dielectric. Close-to-zero turn-on voltage, field-effect mobility ≈5 cm2 V-1 s-1, and subthreshold slope of 0.26 V dec-1 are obtained. Stability under negative-bias-illumination stress is dramatically improved with hydrogen incorporation in ZTO and device performance is insensitive to bending under a radius of curvature of 15 mm. Inverters using the ZTO TFTs enable rail-to-rail operation with supply voltage V DD as low as 5 V, while a differential amplifier with positive feedback loop provides a gain of 17 dB and unity gain frequency of 40 kHz, limited by the large gate-to-source and gate-to-drain overlaps used herein.
KW - Amorphous semiconductors
KW - Flexible electronics
KW - Oxide thin-film transistors
KW - Sustainable materials
KW - Zinc-tin oxide
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047622887&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/aelm.201800032
DO - 10.1002/aelm.201800032
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85047622887
VL - 4
JO - Advanced Electronic Materials
JF - Advanced Electronic Materials
SN - 2199-160X
IS - 7
M1 - 1800032
ER -