Improved High-Performance Solution Processed In₂O₃ Thin Film Transistor Fabricated by Femtosecond Laser Pre-Annealing Process

Abstract

The low-temperature annealing process has a critical impact on the electrical performance of thin-film transistors (TFTs). This paper reports significant performance enhancements of TFTs using a femtosecond laser pre-annealing (FLA)-based preparation method. The solution-processed In2O3 films were fabricated by FLA at various laser irradiation times and then annealed on a hot-plate at 230 °C. When the FLA time was set to 30 s, the device exhibited high saturation mobility of 10.03 ± 0.64 cm2/Vs, $I_{\mathrm {on}}/I_{\mathrm {off}}$ of $3.4\times 10^{5}$ , low $V_{\mathrm {TH}}$ of 0.14 ± 0.64 V, and small SS of 1.44 ± 0.37 V/dec. The FLA process improved the formation of M-O lattices effectively, which led to an improvement in mobility. Furthermore, the gate-bias-stress stability and time-dependent environmental stability were improved considerably by the FLA process. These results show that high-performance In2O3 TFTs can be prepared at low temperatures using FLA-centered annealing technology. This work suggests that the FLA preparation method has tremendous potential for the fabrication of low-cost, high performance, and flexible TFT devices.

Keywords

• In₂O₃
• thin-film transistors
• solution process
• femtosecond laser
• low-temperature
• annealing process