Amorphous oxide semiconductors for high-performance flexible thin-film transistors

Recently, we have demonstrated the potential of amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOSs) for developing flexible thin-film transistors (TFTs). A material exploration of AOSs desired as the channel layer in TFTs is most important for developing high-performance devices. Here, we report our concept of material exploration for AOSs in high-performance flexible and transparent TFTs from the viewpoints of chemical bonding and electronic structure in oxide semiconductors. We find that amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) exhibits good carrier transport properties such as reasonably high Hall mobilities (>10cm 2·V-1·S-1) and a good controllability of carrier concentration from <1015 to 10 20 cm-3. In addition, a-IGZO films have better chemical stabilities in ambient atmosphere and at temperatures up to 500°C. The flexible and transparent TFT fabricated using a-IGZO channel layer at room temperature operated with excellent performances, such as normally-off characteristics, on/off current ratios (∼106) and field-effect mobilities (∼10cm2·V-1·S-1), which are higher by an order of magnitude than those of amorphous Si:H and organics TFTs. © 2006 The Japan Society of Applied Physics.