Flexible and High-Performance Amorphous Indium Zinc Oxide Thin-Film Transistor Using Low-Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition

Amorphous indium zinc oxide (IZO) thin films were deposited at different temperatures, by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using [1,1,1-trimethyl-N-(trimethylsilyl)­silanaminato]indium (INCA-1) as the indium precursor, diethlzinc (DEZ) as the zinc precursor, and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as the reactant. The ALD process of IZO deposition was carried by repeated supercycles, including one cycle of indium oxide (In2O3) and one cycle of zinc oxide (ZnO). The IZO growth rate deviates from the sum of the respective In2O3 and ZnO growth rates at ALD growth temperatures of 150, 175, and 200 °C. We propose growth temperature-dependent surface reactions during the In2O3 cycle that correspond with the growth-rate results. Thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated with the ALD-grown IZO thin films as the active layer. The amorphous IZO TFTs exhibited high mobility of 42.1 cm2 V–1 s–1 and good positive bias temperature stress stability. Finally, flexible IZO TFT was successfully fabricated on a polyimide substrate without performance degradation, showing the great potential of ALD-grown TFTs for flexible display applications.