High-mobility hydrogenated polycrystalline In(2)O(3) (In(2)O(3):H) thin-film transistors

Oxide semiconductors have been extensively studied as active channel layers of thin-film transistors (TFTs) for electronic applications. However, the field-effect mobility (μ(FE)) of oxide TFTs is not sufficiently high to compete with that of low-temperature-processed polycrystalline-Si TFTs (50–100 cm(2)V(−1)s(−1)). Here, we propose a simple process to obtain high-performance TFTs, namely hydrogenated polycrystalline In(2)O(3) (In(2)O(3):H) TFTs grown via the low-temperature solid-phase crystallization (SPC) process. In(2)O(3):H TFTs fabricated at 300 °C exhibit superior switching properties with µ(FE) = 139.2 cm(2)V(−1)s(−1), a subthreshold swing of 0.19 Vdec(−1), and a threshold voltage of 0.2 V. The hydrogen introduced during sputter deposition plays an important role in enlarging the grain size and decreasing the subgap defects in SPC-prepared In(2)O(3):H. The proposed method does not require any additional expensive equipment and/or change in the conventional oxide TFT fabrication process. We believe these SPC-grown In(2)O(3):H TFTs have a great potential for use in future transparent or flexible electronics applications.