Ultrahigh-performance integrated inverters based on amorphous zinc tin oxide deposited at room temperature

Abstract

Recent advances in the field of integrated circuits based on sustainable and transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOSs) are presented, demonstrating ultrahigh performance operating state-of-the-art integrated inverters comprising metal–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) with amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) as a channel material. All individual circuit layers have been deposited entirely at room temperature, and the completed devices did not require undergoing additional thermal annealing treatment in order to facilitate proper device functionality. The demonstrated ZTO-based MESFETs exhibit current on/off ratios of over 8 orders of magnitude a field-effect mobility of 8.4 cm2 V−1 s−1, and they can be switched within a voltage range of less than 1.5 V attributed to their small subthreshold swing as low as 86 mV decade−1. Due to adjustments of the circuit layout and, thus, the improvement of certain geometry-related transistor properties, the associated Schottky diode FET logic inverters facilitate low-voltage switching by exhibiting a remarkable maximum voltage gain of up to 1190 with transition voltages of only 80 mV while operating at low supply voltages ≤3 V and maintaining a stable device performance under level shift. To the best of our knowledge, the presented integrated inverters clearly exceed the performance of any similar previously reported devices based on AOS, and thus, prove the enormous potential of amorphous ZTO for sustainable, scalable low-power electronics within future flexible and transparent applications.