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Ultra-Low Voltage Metal Oxide Thin Film Transistor by Low-Temperature Annealed Solution Processed LiAlO2 Gate Dielectric

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Abstract

Low surface-roughness and high-capacitance ion-conducting LiAlO2 gate dielectric thin film has been fabricated by sol–gel technique to develop ultra-low voltage (≤ 1.0 V) indium-zinc-oxide thin film transistor (TFT). This LiAlO2 dielectric shows α-LiAlO2 and γ-LiAlO2 phases those have been fabricated at two different temperatures. For both phases, mobile Li-ion is responsible to achieve a high dielectric constant (κ) of the material that helps to reduce the operating voltage of TFT. Additionally, lower surface roughness of LiAlO2 thin film creates a low-density trap state in the semiconductor/dielectric interface which is capable to reduce operating voltage within 1.0-volt. The device with 700 °C annealed γ-LiAlO2 gate dielectric shows the best device performance with an electron mobility of 25 cm2 V−1 s−1 and an on/off ratio of 3 × 105. Instead, 350 °C annealed α-LiAlO2 dielectric require only one volt to saturate the drain current and shows its mobility and on/off ratio are 13.5 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 1 × 104 respectively. Such kind of unusually low operation voltage TFT fabrication becomes possible because of the higher Li+ mobility of α-LiAlO2 gate dielectric and very low surface trap density. A model on carrier transport mechanism has been prepossessed to explain this achievement.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by “Science and Engineering Research Board”, India (EMR/2015/000689). Authors are grateful to Central Instrument Facility Centre, IIT(BHU) for providing the SEM and AFM measurement facility. Anand Sharma and Nitesh K Chourasia thanks IIT(BHU) for providing PhD fellowship. Sajal Biring acknowledges the financial support from Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 105-2218-E-131-003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi, 221005, India

    Anand Sharma, Nitesh K. Chourasia, Vishwas Acharya, Nila Pal & Bhola N. Pal

  2. Organic Electronics Research Center, Department of Electronic Engineering, Ming Chi University of Technology, New Taipei City, 243, Taiwan

    Sajal Biring, Shun-Wei Liu & Bhola N. Pal

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  1. Anand Sharma
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Correspondence to Sajal Biring or Bhola N. Pal.

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Sharma, A., Chourasia, N.K., Acharya, V. et al. Ultra-Low Voltage Metal Oxide Thin Film Transistor by Low-Temperature Annealed Solution Processed LiAlO2 Gate Dielectric. Electron. Mater. Lett. 16, 22–34 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-019-00184-1

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