Effects of Ar/N-2 flow ratio on sputtered-AlN film and its application to low-voltage organic thin-film transistors

Abstract

In this work, we applied a low-temperature (150 degrees) alumina nitride (AIN) film as the gate dielectric in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). It was found that the Poole-Frenkel-type leakage can be suppressed by increasing the nitrogen gas ratio in the deposition process. The thin and low-leakage AIN dielectric was characterized and then utilized in pentacene-based OTFTs. The proposed AIN dielectric greatly lowers the OTFT operating voltage (< 5 V). A low threshold voltage (-1.5 V), a low subthreshold swing (104 mV/decade), and a high on/off current ratio (> 10(5)) were also obtained for the AIN-OTFTs.