High-Performance Single-Crystalline Arsenic-Doped Indium Oxide Nanowires for Transparent Thin-Film Transistors and Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode Displays

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 3; no. 11; pp. 3383 - 3390
• Main Authors: Chen, Po-Chiang, Shen, Guozhen, Chen, Haitian, Ha, Young-geun, Wu, Chao, Sukcharoenchoke, Saowalak, Fu, Yue, Liu, Jun, Facchetti, Antonio, Marks, Tobin J, Thompson, Mark E, Zhou, Chongwu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 24.11.2009
• Subjects: AMOLED display; transparent electronics; self-assembled gate dielectric (SAND); metal oxide nanowire synthesis
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/nn900704c

We report high-performance arsenic (As)-doped indium oxide (In2O3) nanowires for transparent electronics, including their implementation in transparent thin-film transistors (TTFTs) and transparent active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays. The As-doped In2O3 nanowires were synthesized using a laser ablation process and then fabricated into TTFTs with indium−tin oxide (ITO) as the source, drain, and gate electrodes. The nanowire TTFTs on glass substrates exhibit very high device mobilities (∼1490 cm2 V−1 s−1), current on/off ratios (5.7 × 106), steep subthreshold slopes (88 mV/dec), and a saturation current of 60 μA for a single nanowire. By using a self-assembled nanodielectric (SAND) as the gate dielectric, the device mobilities and saturation current can be further improved up to 2560 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 160 μA, respectively. All devices exhibit good optical transparency (∼81% on average) in the visible spectral range. In addition, the nanowire TTFTs were utilized to control green OLEDs with varied intensities. Furthermore, a fully integrated seven-segment AMOLED display was fabricated with a good transparency of 40% and with each pixel controlled by two nanowire transistors. This work demonstrates that the performance enhancement possible by combining nanowire doping and self-assembled nanodielectrics enables silicon-free electronic circuitry for low power consumption, optically transparent, high-frequency devices assembled near room temperature.