Tunable electrical properties of NiO thin films and p-type thin-film transistors

Oxide p-type transistors are expected in realization of complementary circuits. Here, amorphous p-type NiO thin films were deposited on glass substrates by radio frequency (rf) sputtering at various growth temperatures and O-2/Ar flowratios. The influence of growth temperature and O-2/Ar flow ratio on the structural and electrical properties of amorphous NiO thin films has been systematically investigated by means of characterizations from X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy, and electrical measurements. Pure Ar ambient with room temperature (RT) growth of NiO films shows the highest mobility of 1.07 cm(2)/Vs, and hole concentration of 2.78 x 10(17) cm(-3). Initial p-type NiO-based thin film transistors grown by magnetron sputtering demonstrated a mobility of 0.05 cm(2)/Vs, a threshold voltage (Vth) of -8.6 V, subthreshold swing (S) of 2.6 V/dec, the current on-off ratio of 10(3), respectively. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.