Investigation of Low-Temperature Processed Amorphous ZnO TFTs Using a Sol-Gel Method

In this paper, ZnO Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) were fabricated by a sol-gel method using a low-temperature process, and their physical and electrical characteristics were analyzed. To lower the process temperature to $200^{\circ}C$, we used a zinc nitrate hydrate ($Zn(NO_3)_2{\cdot}xH_2O$) precursor. Thermo Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) analysis showed that the zinc nitrate hydrate precursor solution had 1.5% residual organics, much less than the 6.5% of zinc acetate dihydrate at $200^{\circ}C$. In the sol-gel method, organic materials in the precursor disrupt formation of a high-quality film, and high-temperature annealing is needed to remove the organic residuals, which implies that, by using zinc nitrate hydrate, ZnO devices can be fabricated at a much lower temperature. Using an X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) and an X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS), $200^{\circ}C$ annealed ZnO film with zinc nitrate hydrate (ZnO (N)) was found to have an amorphous phase and much more oxygen vacancy ($V_o$) than Zn-O bonds. Despite no crystallinity, the ZnO (N) had conductance comparable to that of ZnO with zinc acetate dihydrate (ZnO (A)) annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ as in TFTs. These results show that sol-gel could be made a potent process for low-cost and flexible device applications by optimizing the precursors.