Strong Influence of Humidity on Low-Temperature Thin-Film Fabrication via Metal Aqua Complex for High Performance Oxide Semiconductor Thin-Film Transistors.

Oxide semiconductors thin film transistors (OS TFTs) with good transparency and electrical performance have great potential for future display technology. In particular, solution-processed OS TFTs have been attracted much attention due to many advantages such as continuous, large scale, and low cost processability. Recently, OS TFTs fabricated with a metal aqua complex have been focused because they have low temperature processability for deposition on flexible substrate as well as high field-effect mobility for application of advanced display. However, despite some remarkable results, important factors to optimize their electrical performance with reproducibility and uniformity have not yet been achieved. Here, we newly introduce the strong effects of humidity to enhance the electrical performance of OS TFTs fabricated with the metal aqua complex. Through humidity control during the spin-coating process and annealing process, we successfully demonstrate solution-processed InOx/SiO2 TFTs with a good electrical uniformity of ∼5% standard deviation, showing high average field-effect mobility of 2.76 cm2V-1s-1 and 15.28 cm2V-1s-1 fabricated at 200 and 250 °C, respectively. Also, on the basis of the systematic analyses, we demonstrate the mechanism for the change in electrical properties of InOx TFTs depending on the humidity control. Finally, on the basis of the mechanism, we extended the humidity control to the fabrication of the AlOx insulator. Subsequently, we successfully achieved humidity-controlled InOx/AlOx TFTs fabricated at 200 °C showing high average field-effect mobility of 9.5 cm2V-1s-1.