Facile fabrication of electrolyte-gated single-crystalline cuprous oxide nanowire field-effect transistors

Oxide semiconductors are considered to be one of the forefront candidates for the new generation, high-performance electronics. However, one of the major limitations for oxide electronics is the scarcity of an equally good hole-conducting semiconductor, which can provide identical performance for the p-type metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors as compared to their electron conducting counterparts. In this quest, here we present a bulk synthesis method for single crystalline cuprous oxide (Cu2O) nanowires, their chemical and morphological characterization and suitability as active channel material in electrolyte-gated, low-power, field-effect transistors (FETs) for portable and flexible logic circuits. The bulk synthesis method used in the present study includes two steps: namely hydrothermal synthesis of the nanowires and the removal of the surface organic contaminants. The surface treated nanowires are then dispersed on a receiver substrate where the passive electrodes are structured, followed by printing of a composite solid polymer electrolyte (CSPE), chosen as the gate insulator. The characteristic electrical properties of individual nanowire FETs are found to be quite interesting including accumulation-mode operation and field-effect mobility of 0.15 cm(2) V-1 s(-1).