The effect of the annealing temperature on the transition from conductor to semiconductor behavior in zinc tin oxide deposited atomic layer deposition

We investigated the electrical properties of zinc tin oxide (ZTO) films deposited via atomic layer deposition and compared them to ZnO and SnO2 films as a function of the annealing temperature. The ZTO and ZnO, except for SnO2, films exhibited an electrical transition from a metal to semiconductor characteristics when annealed above 300 degrees C. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses indicate that the relative area of the oxygen vacancy-related peak decreased from 58% to 41% when annealing at temperatures above 400 degrees C. Thin film transistors incorporating ZTO active layers demonstrated a mobility of 13.2 cm(2)/V s and a negative bias instability of -0.2 V. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.