Improvement of Electron-Gun Evaporated Aluminum Oxide for Pentacene Thin-Film Transistor

Abstract

Supercritical fluid (SCF) technology was proposed to improve the dielectric properties of electron-gun evaporated aluminum oxide (AlO(x)) film in this work. The leakage current of AlO(x) film deposited at room temperature was suppressed significantly from 10(-4) to 10(-10) A at a bias voltage of -20 V after the SCF treatment mixed with water and propyl alcohol. The evolution of the leakage conduction mechanism was confirmed theoretically from trap-assisted quantum tunneling to the Schottky emission process due to the reduction of electric traps in the AlO(x) dielectric film. In addition, our work demonstrated the application of SCF-treated AlO(x) gate dielectric to a pentacene-based thin-film transistor.