Preparation and Characterization of Solution-Processed Nanocrystalline p-Type CuAlO2 Thin-Film Transistors

The development of p-type metal oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) is far behind the n-type counterparts. Here, p-type CuAlO2 thin films were deposited by spin coating and annealed in nitrogen atmosphere at different temperature. The effect of post-annealing temperature on the microstructure, chemical compositions, morphology, and optical properties of the thin films was investigated systematically. The phase conversion from a mixture of CuAl2O4 and CuO to nanocrystalline CuAlO2 was achieved when annealing temperature was higher than 900 °C, as well as the transmittance, optical energy band gap, grain size, and surface roughness of the films increase with the increase of annealing temperature. Next, bottom-gate p-type TFTs with CuAlO2 channel layer were fabricated on SiO2/Si substrate. It was found that the TFT performance was strongly dependent on the physical properties and the chemical composition of channel layer. The optimized nanocrystalline CuAlO2 TFT exhibits a threshold voltage of − 1.3 V, a mobility of ~ 0.1 cm2 V−1 s−1, and a current on/off ratio of ~ 103. This report on solution-processed p-type CuAlO2 TFTs represents a significant progress towards low-cost complementary metal oxide semiconductor logic circuits.