Facile Electroless Deposition of Zinc Oxide Ultrathin Film for Zinc Acetate Solution-processed Transistors

A low-cost, ultra-thin, transparency and high-quality zinc oxide (ZnO) film was successfully demonstrated as the carrier transporting and semiconducting layer for thin-film transistor (TFT) devices. The ZnO ultra-thin film with 3.7 nm in thickness was spin-coated from zinc acetate sol-gel solution under electroless condition. The film structure was characterized by atomic force microscopy and x-ray diffraction spectroscopy, respectively. Among various processing temperatures, the electrical property of the fabricated TFT verified the devices could be successfully achieved from suitable annealing temperature of 300 to 700 °C. However, the higher treatment temperature of 800 to 900 °C deteriorated the transistor property due to the loss of oxygen vacancy. The electrical properties of these ZnO-based n-type TFTs were obtained as follows: the mobility (μsat) ranged from 0.47 to 1.78 cm 2