Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Gate Dielectrics Using Self-Assembled Multilayers For Low-Voltage Operating Thin-Film Transistors

Abstract

Advanced electronic materials have attracted great interest for their potential use in flexible, large-area, and printable electronic applications. However, fabricating high-performance low-voltage thin-film transistors (TFTs) for those applications with these advanced semiconductors is still challenging because of a lack of dielectric materials which satisfy both the required electrical and physical performance. In this work, we report self-assembled hybrid multilayer gate dielectrics prepared using a facile solution procedure to achieve organic semiconductor and amorphous oxide semiconductor-based thin-film transistors with ultralow operating voltage. These self-assembled hybrid multilayer gate dielectrics were constructed by iterative self-assembly of synthesized bifunctional phosphonic acid-based organic molecules and ultrathin high-k hafnium oxide layers. The novel self-assembled hybrid multilayer gate dielectrics exhibit excellent dielectric properties with exceptionally large capacitances (up to 815 nF/ cm2) and low-level leakage current densities of < 1.56 × 10-6 A/cm2, featureless morphology (RMS roughness < 0.24 nm), and thermal stability (up to 300 °C). Consequently, these hybrid gate dielectrics can be incorporated into thin-film transistors with pentacene as p-type organic semiconductors, and with indium oxide as n-type inorganic semiconductors. The resulting TFTs functioned at ultralow voltages (< ± 2 V) and achieved high transistor performances (hole mobility: 0.88 cm2 / V·s, electron mobility: 7.8 cm2 / V·s and on/off current ratio >104, and threshold voltage: ± 0.5 V).