Transparent Thin-Film Transistors Based on c-Axis Oriented, Vertically Aligned ZnO Nanorod Arrays via Solution Processing

A bottom-gate, top-contact transparent thin film transistor (TFT) based on c-axis oriented, vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays was fabricated on glass substrates via solution processing, in which ZnO nanorod arrays were synthesized on ZnO seed layers through a simple hydrothermal route. This TFT used SiO2 and indium tin oxide as the gate insulator and gate electrode, respectively. The source and drain electrodes were formed by radio frequency sputtered Au through a shadow mask. This ZnO TFT exhibited n-channel enhancement behavior with a field effective mobility of 3.86 cm2 V−1 s−1, a current on-to-off ratio of 65.5 and a threshold voltage of 1 V. Moreover, the ZnO TFT has a high transmittance of 80% in the visible spectrum. Our results demonstrate that hydrothermally grown, vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays are very promising for the fabrication of cost effective and high performance transparent thin-film transistors.