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Characterization of amorphous zinc tin oxide semiconductors

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Abstract

Amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) was investigated to determine the effect of deposition and postannealing conditions on film structure, composition, surface contamination, and thin-film transistor (TFT) performance. X-ray diffraction results indicated that the ZTO films remain amorphous even after annealing to 600 °C. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry indicated that the bulk Zn:Sn ratio of the sputter-deposited films were slightly tin rich compared to the composition of the ceramic sputter target. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicated that residual surface contamination depended strongly on the sample postannealing conditions where water, carbonate, and hydroxyl species were adsorbed to the surface. Electrical characterization of ZTO TFTs indicated that the best devices had mobilities of 17 cm2/Vs, threshold voltages of −1.5 V, subthreshold slopes of 0.9 V/dec, turn-on voltages of −12 V, and on-to-off ratio of >107. Annealing ZTO in vacuum assisted in the removal of adsorbed species, which may reduce defects in the films and improve device performance.

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Acknowledgment

This research was performed in part using facilities at the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute and the Materials Synthesis and Characterization Facility at Oregon State University and at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). J.S.R. thanks PNNL for providing an Alternate Sponsored Fellowship during a portion of these studies. The project was funded by the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute and the Office of Naval Research under contract number 200CAR262.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331, USA

    Jaana S. Rajachidambaram, Brendan Flynn & Gregory S. Herman

  2. Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, 99352, USA

    Shail Sanghavi, Ponnusamy Nachimuthu, Vaithiyalingam Shutthanandan, Tamas Varga & Suntharampillai Thevuthasan

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  1. Jaana S. Rajachidambaram
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Correspondence to Gregory S. Herman.

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Rajachidambaram, J.S., Sanghavi, S., Nachimuthu, P. et al. Characterization of amorphous zinc tin oxide semiconductors. Journal of Materials Research 27, 2309–2317 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.170

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