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High-performance transparent inorganic–organic hybrid thin-film n-type transistors

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 893–900 (2006)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 01 April 2007

Abstract

High-performance thin-film transistors (TFTs) that can be fabricated at low temperature and are mechanically flexible, optically transparent and compatible with diverse substrate materials are of great current interest. To function at low biases to minimize power consumption, such devices must also contain a high-mobility semiconductor and/or a high-capacitance gate dielectric. Here we report transparent inorganic–organic hybrid n-type TFTs fabricated at room temperature by combining In2O3 thin films grown by ion-assisted deposition, with nanoscale organic dielectrics self-assembled in a solution-phase process. Such TFTs combine the advantages of a high-mobility transparent inorganic semiconductor with an ultrathin high-capacitance/low-leakage organic gate dielectric. The resulting, completely transparent TFTs exhibit excellent operating characteristics near 1.0 V with large field-effect mobilities of >120 cm2 V−1 s−1, drain–source current on/off modulation ratio (Ion/Ioff)∼105, near-zero threshold voltages and sub-threshold gate voltage swings of 90 mV per decade. The results suggest new strategies for achieving ‘invisible’ optoelectronics.

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Figure 1: Inorganic-only and inorganic–organic hybrid TFTs fabricated using In2O3 thin films as the n-channel semiconductor; L (channel length)=50/100 μm, W (channel width)=5 mm.
Figure 2: Electrical and optical properties of 120 nm as-deposited In2O3 thin films on Corning 1737F glass substrates.
Figure 3: XRD, AFM and SIMS of IAD-derived In2O3 thin films in inorganic-only and inorganic–organic hybrid TFTs.
Figure 4: Field-effect device characteristics of inorganic-only TFTs on p+-Si substrates and inorganic–organic hybrid TFTs on n+-Si substrates and Corning 1737F glass substrates.
Figure 5: Typical field-effect device characteristics of fully transparent inorganic–organic hybrid TFTs on Corning 1737F glass substrates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the NASA Institute for Nanoelectronics and Computing (NCC2-3163) and DARPA/ARO (W911NF-05-1-0187) for support of this research. Characterization facilities were provided by the Northwestern University MRSEC (NSF-DMR-00760097).

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  1. Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 60208-3113, USA

    Lian Wang, Myung-Han Yoon, Gang Lu, Yu Yang, Antonio Facchetti & Tobin J. Marks

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  1. Lian Wang
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Wang, L., Yoon, MH., Lu, G. et al. High-performance transparent inorganic–organic hybrid thin-film n-type transistors. Nature Mater 5, 893–900 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1755

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