High-Performance Flexible Tin-Zinc-Oxide Thin-Film Transistors Fabricated on Plastic Substrates

Abstract

Full transparent high-performance tin-zinc-oxide thin-film transistors (TZO TFTs) had been successfully fabricated on flexible plastic substrate by radio frequency (RF) sputtering. Excellent properties of TZO TFT with L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> = 10 μm gate length were realized, namely high saturation mobility (μ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">s</sub> ) of 175 cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> /V · s, high linear mobility (μl) of 127 cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> /V · s, a suitable threshold voltage (V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> ) of 1.81 V, a steep subthreshold swing (SS) of 220 mV/decade, an ON/OFF current ratio (I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ON</sub> /IO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FF</sub> ) of ~1 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">8</sup> , and good transmittance of 91.9%, which compare favorably to those made on glass substrates. Mechanical stability of flexible TZO TFTs was investigated by bending tests. The flexible TZO TFTs exhibited good electrical performance, good uniformity, and good flexibility. Thereby, we demonstrated the feasibility of high-performance TZO TFTs for flexible display applications.