High performance thin film transistor (flex-TFT) with textured nanostructure ZnO film channel fabricated by exploiting electric double layer gate insulator

Abstract

We report a flexible thin film transistor (flex-TFT) fabricated on a commonly available polyimide (Kapton®) tape with a channel of highly textured nanocrystalline ZnO film grown by pulsed laser deposition. The flex-TFT with an electric double layer (EDL) gate insulator shows a low threshold for operation (Vth ≤ 1 V), an ON/OFF ratio reaching ≈107 and a subthreshold swing ≈75 mV/dec. The superior performance is enabled by a high saturation mobility (μs ≈ 70 cm2/V s) of the highly textured nanocrystalline channel. The low Vth arises from large charge density (≈1014/cm2) induced into the channel by EDL gate insulator. The large charge density induced by the EDL gate dielectric also enhances the Hall mobility in the film and brings down the sheet resistance by nearly 2 orders, which leads to large ON/OFF ratio. The flex-TFT operation can be sustained with reproducibility when the TFT is bent down to a radius of curvature ≈2 cm.