Amorphous InGaZnO Thin Film Transistor Fabricated with Printed Silver Salt Ink Source/Drain Electrodes

Caigui Yang,Junbiao Peng,Zhiqiang Fang,Jianqiu Chen,Honglong Ning,Zeke Zheng,Ruiqiang Tao,Rihui Yao,Yongsheng Song,Yicong Zhou,Lei Wang

doi:10.3390/app7080844

Abstract

Recently, amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs) with inkjet printing silver source/drain electrodes have attracted great attention, especially for large area and flexible electronics applications. The silver ink could be divided into two types: one is based on silver nanoparticles, and the other is silver salt ink. Organic materials are essential in the formulation of nanoparticle ink as a strong disperse stabilizer to prevent agglomeration of silver particles, but will introduce contact problems between the silver electrodes and the a-IGZO active layer after annealing, which is difficult to eliminate and leads to poor device properties. Our experiment is aimed to reduce this effect by using a silver salt ink without stabilizer component. With optimized inkjet printing conditions, the high performance of a-IGZO TFT was obtained with a mobility of 4.28 cm2/V·s and an on/off current ratio over 106. The results have demonstrated a significant improvement for a-IGZO TFTs with directly printed silver electrodes. This work presents a promising platform for future printed electronic applications.

Highlights

Thin film transistors (TFTs) are fundamental electronic components in virtually all consumer and professional display products, from smart phones to flat panel TVs [1,2,3]
The a-IGZO TFTs with printed Ag S/D electrodes from different types of silver inks were studied in this work under optimized conditions
The performance of devices fabricated with silver salt ink was was demonstrated much better characteristics than those fabricated with silver nanoparticle ink

Summary

Introduction

Thin film transistors (TFTs) are fundamental electronic components in virtually all consumer and professional display products, from smart phones to flat panel TVs [1,2,3]. A-IGZO TFTs with printed S/D electrodes are fabricated using a silver salt inkof driving flat ink panel displays [24]. The interface by using silver salt ink, which indicates the solving of the contact problem to some extent this manner, well-performing a-IGZO TFTs were obtained successfully and reasonably.

Results

Conclusion