Solution-Processed Metal Oxide Thin-Film Transistor at Low Temperature via A Combination Strategy of HO-Inducement Technique and Infrared Irradiation Annealing.

Solution processing has emerged as a promising technique for the fabrication of oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs), offering advantages such as low cost, high throughput, and exceptional compositional control. However, achieving reasonable electrical properties typically demands high annealing temperatures in the fabrication process. In addressing this challenge, a novel combination strategy is proposed that involves integrating the HO inducement technique with infrared (IR) irradiation annealing. The study investigates the effects of precursors and IR irradiation annealing temperatures on the electrical properties of InO TFTs. It is found that HO can help accelerate the decomposition of organic residues, while IR irradiation annealing could enhance the film densification. By employing the proposed strategy, metal oxide TFTs consisting of a Zr-Al-O dielectric fabricated at 230 °C and an InO channel layer fabricated at 185 °C demonstrated high performance with field-effect mobility = 31.7 cm V·s, threshold voltage = 1.3 V, subthreshold swing = 0.13 V per decade, and on-to-off current ratio = 1.1 × 10. This work demonstrates the proposed combinational strategy is a general method to fabricate not only metal oxide semiconductors but also dielectrics.