We examined the characteristics of indium tin zinc oxide (ITZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) on polyimide (PI) substrates for next-generation flexible display application. In this study, the ITZO TFT was fabricated and analyzed with a SiOx/ SiNx gate insulator deposited using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) below 350℃. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) results revealed that the oxygen vacancies and impurities such as H, OH and H2O increased at ITZO/gate insulator interface. Our study suggests that the hydrogen related impurities existing in the PI and gate insulator were diffused into the channel during the fabrication process. We demonstrate that these impurities and oxygen vacancies in the ITZO channel/gate insulator may cause degradation of the electrical characteristics and bias stability. Therefore, in order to realize high performance oxide TFTs for flexible displays, it is necessary to develop a buffer layer (e.g., Al2O3) that can sufficiently prevent the diffusion of impurities into the channel.

The micron-sized indium zinc tin oxide (IZTO) particles were prepared by spray pyrolysis from aqueous precursor solution for indium, zinc, and tin and organic additives such as citric acid (CA) and ethylene glycol (EG) were added to aqueous precursor solution for indium, zinc, and tin. The obtained IZTO particles prepared by spray pyrolysis from the aqueous solution without organic additives had spherical and filled morphologies, whereas the IZTO particles obtained with organic additives had more hollow and porous morphologies. The micron-sized IZTO particles with organic additives were changed fully to nano-sized IZTO particles, whereas the micron-sized IZTO particles without organic additives were not changed fully to nano-sized IZTO particle after post-treatment at 700 °C for 2 hours and wet-ball milling for 24 hours. Surface resistances of micron-sized IZTO’s before post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling were much higher than those of nano-sized IZTO’s after post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling. From IZTO with composition of 80 wt. % In2O3, 10 wt. % ZnO, and 10 wt. % SnO2 which showed a smallest surface resistance IZTO after post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling, thin films were deposited on glass substrates by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering, and the electrical and optical properties were investigated.

We have investigated the properties of thin film transistors(TFT) fabricated using zinc tin oxide(ZTO) thin films deposited via on-axis sputtering and FTS methods. ZTO thin films deposited by FTS showed lower root-mean-square(RMS) roughness and more uniformity than those deposited via on-axis sputtering. We observed enhanced electrical properties of ZTO TFT deposited via FTS. The ZTO films were deposited at room temperature via on-axis sputtering and FTS. The as-deposited ZTO films were annealed at 400 oC. The TFT using the ZTO films deposited via FTS process exhibited a high mobility of 12.91 cm2/V.s, a low swing of 0.80 V/decade, Vth of 5.78 V, and a high Ion/off ratio of 2.52 × 106.

We studied the influence of different types of metal electrodes on the performance of solution-processed zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin-film transistors. The ZTO thin-film was obtained by spin-coating the sol-gel solution made from zinc acetate and tin acetate dissolved in 2-methoxyethanol. Various metals, Al, Au, Ag and Cu, were used to make contacts with the solution-deposited ZTO layers by selective deposition through a metal shadow mask. Contact resistance between the metal electrode and the semiconductor was obtained by a transmission line method (TLM). The device based on an Al electrode exhibited superior performance as compared to those based on other metals. Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) allowed us to measure the work function of the oxide semiconductor to understand the variation of the device performance as a function of the types metal electrode. The solution-processed ZTO contained nanopores that resulted from the burnout of the organic species during the annealing. This different surface structure associated with the solution-processed ZTO gave a rise to a different work function value as compared to the vacuum-deposited counterpart. More oxygen could be adsorbed on the nanoporous solution-processed ZTO with large accessible surface areas, which increased its work function. This observation explained why the solution-processed ZTO makes an ohmic contact with the Al electrode.