Role of a PVA layer During lithography of SnS2 thin Films Grown by Atomic layer Deposition

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have been studied extensively due to their excellent physical, chemical, and electrical properties. Among them, we report the material and device characteristics of tin disulfide ($SnS_2$). To apply $SnS_2$ as a channel layer in a transistor, $SnS_2$ channels were formed by a stripping method and a transfer method. The limitation of this method is that it is difficult to produce uniform device characteristics over a large area. Therefore, we directly deposited $SnS_2$ by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and then performed lithography. This method was able to produce devices with repeatable characteristics over a large area. However, the $SnS_2$ film was damaged by the acetone used as a photoresist (PR) developer during the lithography process, with the electrical properties of mobility of $2.6{\times}10^{-4}cm^2/Vs$, S.S. of 58.1 V/decade, and on/off current ratio of $1.8{\times}10^2$. These results are not suitable for advanced electronic devices. In this study, we analyzed the effect of acetone on $SnS_2$ and studied the device process to prevent such damage. Using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a passivation layer during the lithography process, the electrical characteristics of the $SnS_2$ transistor had $2.11{\times}10^{-3}cm^2/Vs$ of mobility, 11.3 V/decade of S.S, and $2.5{\times}10^3$ of the on/off current ratio, which were 10x improvements to the $SnS_2$ transistor fabricated by the conventional method.