Modification of a polymer gate insulator by zirconium oxide doping for low temperature, high performance indium zinc oxide transistorsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c4ra08548e

• Main Authors: Son, Byeong-Geun, Je, So Yeon, Kim, Hyo Jin, Jeong, Jae Kyeong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 23.09.2014
• ISSN: 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/c4ra08548e

Indium zinc oxide (IZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) with poly(4-vinylphenol- co -methylmethacrylate) (PVP- co -PMMA) gate insulators were fabricated at a low temperature (250 °C). The bottom gate IZO TFTs with a PVP- co -PMMA gate electric film exhibited inferior device performance to the top gate IZO TFTs, which was attributed to sputtering damage of the underlying polymer gate dielectric film during IZO channel formation. The charge carrier transport and interface properties of the IZO TFTs could be further improved by introducing a ZrO 2 precursor to the polymer gate insulator. The ZrO 2 molecules were well dispersed in the polymer film. The resulting hybrid dielectric film showed a higher capacitance and a smoother morphology than the PVP- co -PMMA dielectric film. The hybrid dielectric-gated IZO TFT had a high mobility of 28.4 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , low subthreshold gate swing of 0.70 V per decade, and a high I on/off ratio of 4.0 × 10 7 . The zirconia-dispersed hybrid polymer film was synthesized as a gate insulator at low temperature for high performance IZO transistors.