Directed Assembly of p-Type Tellurium Nanowires for Room-Temperature-Processed Thin-Film Transistors

• Published in: IEEE journal on flexible electronics Vol. 3; no. 10; pp. 454 - 460
• Main Authors: Hadhi Pazhaya Puthanveettil, Mohammed, Singh, Manvendra, Chandana Amarakonda, Siri, Dasgupta, Subho
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.10.2024
• Subjects: Assembly; Dielectrophoresis; Electric fields; Electrodes; electrolyte gating; Flexible electronics; inkjet printing; Nanowires; Substrates; Tellurium; Thin film transistors; thin-film transistor (TFT); Transistors
• ISSN: 2768-167X; 2768-167X
• DOI: 10.1109/JFLEX.2025.3526083

The flexible electronics domain has emerged as an alternate technology beyond silicon CMOS because of advancements in low-temperature solution-processable thin-film transistors (TFTs) and circuits. However, uniformity and scalability remain the main hindrances for solution-processed devices, especially when it comes to the deposition of nanomaterials. In this regard, directional assembly using dielectrophoresis is a quick and easy way to uniformly align 1-D nanostructures, for example, nanowires, to bridge a gap between the electrodes to form a transistor channel using nonlinear ac electric fields. In this study, high-hole mobility tellurium nanowires are assembled using nonlinear ac dielectrophoresis to fabricate electrolyte-gated TFTs (EG-TFTs) on a flexible substrate at room temperature. These p-type flexible transistors exhibit an on-off ratio of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">3.3\times 10^{2} </tex-math></inline-formula>, an ON-current density of 20 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>A <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>m−1, a specific transconductance of 8.5 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>S <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>m−1, and linear mobility of 20.6 cm2 V−1 s−1 with adequate mechanical strain tolerance.