Electrical characteristics of flexible ZnO thin-film transistors annealed by microwave irradiation

Abstract

This study examines the effect of microwave annealing upon the electrical characteristics of a representative ZnO thin-film transistor (TFT) deposited on a flexible plastic substrate. After microwave irradiation, the mobility of the TFT is increased from 0.2 to 1.5 cm2/(V s) and its on/off ratio increases from 36.5 to 6.9 × 106. The photoluminescence study reveals that the concentration of oxygen vacancies increases remarkably when the ZnO thin films are exposed to microwave radiation. In this paper, in addition to the results mentioned above, the correlation between the photoluminescence and electrical characteristics is discussed and the electrical characteristics of the ZnO TFT under strain are analyzed.