Advanced Functional Materials, Vol.24, No.17, 2537-2543, 2014
A Facile Solution-Doping Method to Improve a LowTemperature Zinc Oxide Precursor: Towards Low-Cost Electronics on Plastic Foil
Optimization of thin-film transistors performance is usually accompanied by an increase of the process temperature. This work presents a method to raise the field effect mobility by a factor of 3 without a change of the process parameters. The modification involves a solution doping process where an ammine zinc complex is formed in the presence of metal ions of the 13(th) group, namely gallium and indium. Morphological studies, including scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, reveal the difference among the resulting films. Moreover, X-ray diffraction results show that the doping affects the preferred orientation of the zinc oxide crystals in the resulting film. The electrical properties vary distinctly and are best for a solution doped with both gallium and indium. With a double-layer system the performance of this new precursor exceeds field effect mobility values of 1 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) after a maximum process temperature of 160 degrees C.
Keywords:solution-processed zinc oxide;thin-film transistors;flexible electronics;morphology of thin films;preferred orientation