Applied Sciences (Aug 2017)

Amorphous InGaZnO Thin Film Transistor Fabricated with Printed Silver Salt Ink Source/Drain Electrodes

  • Caigui Yang,
  • Zhiqiang Fang,
  • Honglong Ning,
  • Ruiqiang Tao,
  • Jianqiu Chen,
  • Yicong Zhou,
  • Zeke Zheng,
  • Rihui Yao,
  • Lei Wang,
  • Junbiao Peng,
  • Yongsheng Song

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app7080844
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 8
p. 844

Abstract

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Recently, amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs) with inkjet printing silver source/drain electrodes have attracted great attention, especially for large area and flexible electronics applications. The silver ink could be divided into two types: one is based on silver nanoparticles, and the other is silver salt ink. Organic materials are essential in the formulation of nanoparticle ink as a strong disperse stabilizer to prevent agglomeration of silver particles, but will introduce contact problems between the silver electrodes and the a-IGZO active layer after annealing, which is difficult to eliminate and leads to poor device properties. Our experiment is aimed to reduce this effect by using a silver salt ink without stabilizer component. With optimized inkjet printing conditions, the high performance of a-IGZO TFT was obtained with a mobility of 4.28 cm2/V·s and an on/off current ratio over 106. The results have demonstrated a significant improvement for a-IGZO TFTs with directly printed silver electrodes. This work presents a promising platform for future printed electronic applications.

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