A low-temperature and short-annealing process for metal oxide thin film transistors using deep ultraviolet light for roll-to-roll processing

Abstract Solution-processed metal oxide semiconductors have superior electron mobility and stability than solution-processed organic semiconductors. However, their fabrication requires a very-high-temperature and long-time annealing process. In this study, we utilized deep ultraviolet (DUV) light to decrease both the temperature and time of the annealing process. High external energy is required to break the organic bonds in a metal oxide film, which is generally supplied by a high-temperature annealing process carried out for a long duration. Alternatively, the required high energy can be supplied more efficiently by irradiating the metal oxide film with DUV light for a shorter duration. In this work, we used DUV light whose peaks at 172 nm instead of the generally used mercury lamp, peaking at 254 and 185 nm. Owing to this difference, thin film transistors (TFTs) could be fabricated on silicon wafers at a lower temperature and shorter duration as compared to the conditions used in previous studies. Various conditions, such as the heating temperature, duration of DUV irradiation, and N 2 flow rate, were optimized to control the heating temperature so as to achieve a mobility of 4.44 cm 2 /V·s and on–off ratio of 2 × 10 7 , which are much higher than those of a transistor annealed at 300 °C for 30 min (mobility, 1.31 cm 2 /V·s and on–off ratio, 7 × 10 5 ).