Rodrigo Martins

In this letter, we report for the first time the use of a sheet of cellulose-fiber-based paper as the dielectric layer used in oxide-based semiconductor thin-film field-effect transistors (FETs). In this new approach, we are using the cellulose-fiber-based paper in an "interstrate"structure since the device is built on both sides of the cellulose sheet. Such hybrid FETs present excellent operating characteristics such as high channel saturation mobility (> 30 cm2Vs), drain-source current on/off modulation ratio of approximately 104, near-zero threshold voltage, enhancement n-type operation, and subthreshold gate voltage swing of 0.8 V/decade. The cellulose-fiber-based paper FETs' characteristics have been measured in air ambient conditions and present good stability, after two months of being processed. The obtained results outpace those of amorphous Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) and rival with the same oxide-based TFTs produced on either glass or crystalline silicon substrates. The compatibility of these devices with large-scale/large-area deposition techniques and low-cost substrates as well as their very low operating bias delineates this as a promising approach to attain high-performance disposable electronics like paper displays, smart labels, smart packaging, RFID, and point-of-care systems for self-analysis in bioapplications, among others. © 2008 IEEE.

Transparent and highly conducting gallium zinc oxide (GZO) films were successfully deposited by RF sputtering at room temperature. A lowest resistivity of∼2.8 × 10-4 ωcm was achieved for a film thickness of 1100nm (sheet resistance ∼2.5ω/□), with a Hall mobility of 18cm2/Vs and a carrier concentration of 1.3 × 1021 cm-3. The films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure having a strong crystallographic c-axis orientation. A linear dependence between the mobility and the crystallite size was obtained. The films are highly transparent (between 80% and 90% including the glass substrate) in the visible spectra with a refractive index of about 2, very similar to the value reported for the bulk material. These films were applied to single glass/TCO/pin hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells as front layer contact, leading to solar cells with efficiencies of about 9.52%. With the optimized deposition conditions, GZO films were also deposited on polymer (PEN) substrates and the obtained results are discussed. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Thin film transistors (TFTs) have been produced by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature, using non conventional oxide materials like amorphous indium-zinc-oxide (IZO) semiconductor, for the channel as well as for the drain and source regions. The obtained TFTs operate in the enhancement mode with threshold voltages of 2.4 V, saturation mobility of 22.7 cm2/Vs, gate voltage swing of 0.44 V/dec and an ON/OFF current ratio of 7×10 7. The high performances presented by these TFTs associated to a high electron mobility, at least two orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional amorphous silicon TFTs and a low threshold voltage, opens new doors for applications in flexible, wearable, disposable portable electronics as well as battery-powered applications.

This paper reports on a method and a test setup developed to measure the transient dark current and the spectral response characteristics of a-Si:H MIS photosensors. Using this method the segmented-gate/SiNx/a Si:H/n +/ITO structures have been characterized under different biasing conditions. The dependences of the dark and light signals on the refresh pulse amplitude, offset voltage and pulse width were measured and analyzed. It is found that the amplitude of the time-dependent component of the leakage current associated with charge trapping at the insulator-semiconductor interface can be significantly reduced by adjusting the offset voltage. The observed bias dependence of the spectral response characteristics is explained by analyzing the charge carrier transport in the absorption layer at different wavelengths of the incident light. © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Staggered bottom gate transparent thin film transistors (TTFTs) have been produced by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature, using amorphous indium-zinc-oxide (IZO) semiconductor, for the channel as well as for the drain and source regions. The obtained TTFTs operate in the enhancement mode with threshold voltages of 2.4 V, saturation mobility of 22.7 cm2/Vs, gate voltage swing of 0.44 V/dec and an ON/OFF current ratio of 7×10 7. The high performances presented by these TTFTs produced at room temperature, make these TFTs a promising candidate for flexible, wearable, disposable portable electronics as well as battery-powered applications.

In this paper we demonstrate the use of amorphous binary In2O3-ZnO oxides simultaneously as active channel layer and as source/drain regions in transparent thin film transistor (TTFT), processed at room temperature by rf sputtering. The TTFTs operate in the enhancement mode and their performances are thickness dependent. The best TTFTs exhibit saturation mobilities higher than 102 cm2/Vs, threshold voltages lower than 6 V, gate voltage swing of 0.8 V/dec and an on/off current ratio of 107. This mobility is at least two orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional amorphous silicon TFTs and comparable to or even better than other polycrystal-line semiconductors. © 2007 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

The devices analyzed in this work present an S-shape J-V characteristic when illuminated. By changing the light flux a non linear dependence of the photocurrent with illumination is observed. Thus a low intensity light beam can be used to probe the local illumination conditions, since a relationship exists between the probe beam photocurrent and the steady state illumination. Numerical simulation studies showed that the origin of this S-shape lies in a reduced electric field across the intrinsic region, which causes an increase in the recombination losses. Based on this, we present a model for the device consisting of a modulated barrier recombination junction in addition to the p-i-n junction. The simulated results are in good agreement with the experimental data. Using the presented model a good estimative of the LSP signal under different illumination conditions can be obtained, thus simplifying the development of applications using the LSP as an image sensor, with advantages over the existing imaging systems in the large area sensor fields with the low cost associated to the amorphous silicon technology. © 2007 Materials Research Society.

Nanocrystalline hydrogenated silicon (nc-Si:H) thin films are generally accepted to be a two phase material-Si crystalline and Si:H amorphous. This work reports the use of impedance spectroscopy to determine the amorphous and crystalline electrical conductivity of a/nc-Si:H films obtained by hot wire chemical vapour deposition. Different relaxation time or time constants are detected, if the film is composed by inhomogeneous material, by measuring ac impedance in a wide range of frequencies. Relating the conduction mechanism of the film to a series of two RC circuits constituted by a resistance and a capacitor in parallel, we may determine distinct ac conductivities and correlate that to the crystalline, amorphous and interface components. The amorphous films analysed exhibit one ac conductivity component while for nanocrystalline films two ac conductivity components are observed. The average value of ac conductivities is in agreement with that of dc conductivity. © 2006.

In this paper we present results of indium zinc oxide deposited at room temperature by rf magnetron sputtering, with an electron mobility as high as 60 cm2/Vs. The films present a resistivity as low as 5 × 10 - 4 Ω cm with an optical transmittance of 85%. The structure of these films seems to be polymorphous (mix of different amorphous and nanocrystalline phases from different origins) as detected from XRD patterns with a smooth surface and from SEM micrographs, is highly important to ensure a long lifetime when used in display devices. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hydrogenated silicon carbon nitride (SiCN:H) thin film alloys were produced by hot wire (HWCVD), plasma assisted hot wire (PA-HWCVD) and plasma enhanced chemical vapor (PECVD) deposition techniques using a Ni buffer layer as catalyst for inducing crystallization. The silicon carbon nitride films were grown using C2H4, SiH4 and NH3 gas mixtures and a deposition temperature of 300 °C. Prior to the deposition of the SiCN:H film a hydrogen etching of 10 min was performed in order to etch the catalyst material and to facilitate the crystallization. We report the influence of each deposition process on compositional, structural and morphological properties of the films. Scanning Electron Microscope-SEM and Atomic Force Measurement-AFM images show their morphology; the chemical composition was obtained by Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry-RBS, Elastic Recoil Detection-ERD and the structure by Infrared-IR analysis. The thickness of the catalyst material determines the growth process and whether or not islands form. The production of micro-structured SiCN:H films is also dependent on the gas pressure, gas mixture and deposition process used. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The laser scanned photodiode (LSP) presents a new concept of image sensor with application in fields where low cost, large area and design simplicity are of major importance. Over the past few years this type of sensor has been under investigation and development, where several structures have been tested and characterized. In this work we present the physical explanation of device operating principle, with recourse to numerical simulation applied to structures with different compositions of the doped layers. An electrical model for this type of device is presented, enabling a fast evaluation of the device characteristics by means of an electrical simulation program. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The recent application of wide band gap oxide semiconductors to transparent thin film transistors (TTFTs) is making a fast and growing (r)evolution on the contemporary solid-state electronics. In this paper we present some of the recent results we have obtained using wide band gap oxide semiconductors, like indium zinc oxide, produced by rf sputtering at room temperature. The devices work in the enhancement mode and exhibit excellent saturation drain currents. On-off ratios above 106 are achieved. The optical transmittance data in the visible range reveals average transmittance higher than 80%, including the glass substrate. Channel mobilities are also quite respectable, with some devices presenting values around 25 cm2/Vs, even without any annealing or other post deposition improvement processes. The high performances presented by these TTFTs associated to a high electron mobility, at least two orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional amorphous silicon TFTs and a low threshold voltage, opens new doors for applications in flexible, wearable, disposable portable electronics as well as battery-powered applications.

In this paper we report some of the recent advances in transparent thin film oxide semiconductors, specifically zinc oxide (ZnO), produced by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature with multifunctional properties. By controlling the deposition parameters it is possible to produce undoped material with electronic semiconductor properties or by doping it to get either n-type or p-type semiconductor behavior. In this work we refer our experience in producing n-type doping ZnO as transparent electrode to be used in optoelectronic applications such as solar cells and position sensitive detectors while the undoped ZnO can be used as UV photodetector or ozone gas sensor or even as active layer of fully transparent thin film transistors.

Flexible and large area (5 mm × 80 mm with an active length of 70 mm) position-sensitive detectors (PSDs) deposited onto polymeric substrates (polyimide - Kapton VN) have been fabricated. The optimized structure presented is based on a heterojunction of amorphous silicon (a-Si: H)/ZnO: Al. The sensors were characterized by spectral response, photocurrent dependence as a function of light intensity, and position detection measurements. The set of data obtained on one-dimensional PSDs based on the heterojunction show excellent performances with a maximum spectral response of 0.12 A/W at 500 nm and a nonlinearity of ±10% over 70-mm length. The produced sensors present a nonlinearity higher than those ones produced on glass substrates, due to the different thermal coefficients exhibited by the polymer and the a-Si: H film. In order to prove this behavior, it was measured the defect density obtained by the constant photocurrent method on a-Si: H thin films deposited on polymeric substrates and bent with different radii of curvature. © 2005 IEEE.

The possibility of fabricating high-mobility ZnO thin-film transistors (ZnO-TFT) at room temperature by rf magnetron sputtering was discussed. It was found that the films were nanocrystalline with a hexagonal structure and exhibited a preferred orientation with the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. The undoped ZnO films exhibited improved crystallinity fraction of the nanocrystals and low oxygen vacancies. Analysis shows that the exposure of the ZnO-TFTs to the ambient light has no effect on the current voltage characteristics.

Zinc oxide is a well-known wide band gap semiconductor material (3.4 eV at room temperature, in the crystalline form), which has many applications, such as for transparent conductors, varistors, surface acoustic waves, gas sensors, piezoelectric transducers and UV detectors. More recently, it is attracting considerable attention for its possible application to thin film transistors. In this paper, we present some of the recent results already obtained as well as the ones that are being developed in our laboratory. The main advantage presented by these new thin film transistors is the combination of high channel mobility and transparency produced at room temperature which makes these thin film transistors a very promising low cost device for the next generation of invisible and flexible electronics. Moreover, the processing technology used to fabricate this device is relatively simple and it is compatible with inexpensive plastic/flexible substrate technology. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The working principle of silicon p-i-n structures with low conductivity (σd) doped layers as single element image sensors is based on the modulation, by the local illumination conditions of the photocurrent generated by a light beam scanning the active area of the device. A higher sensitivity is achieved using a wide band gap a-Si:C alloy in the doped layers, improving the light penetration into the intrinsic semiconductor and reducing the lateral currents in the structure, which are responsible by an image smearing effect observed in sensors with high σd doped layers. This work focuses on the transient response of such sensor and on the role of the carbon (C) content of the doped layers. A set of devices with different percentage of C incorporation in the doped layers is analyzed by measuring the scanner-induced photocurrent under different bias conditions, (ranging from -1.5V to 1V) in order to evaluate the response time.

In this paper we present the effect of the insertion of a non-doped nanocrystalline zinc oxide/buffer layer on the electrical, optical and structural properties of indium tin oxide produced at room temperature by radio frequency plasma enhanced reactive thermal evaporation on polymeric substrates. The electrical resistivity of the ITO films is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude (4.5×10-1 to 2.9×10-3 Ωcm). From the Hall effect measurements it is observed that the large decrease associated to the electrical resistivity, is due to the increase associated to the Hall mobility. Concerning the optical properties no effect was observed, being the transmittance in the visible and near the infra red region always higher than 80%.

In this work, we show the possibility to use undoped porous silicon (PS) thin films produced by hot wire chemical vapour deposition technique (HW-CVD) as ethanol detector. Silicon thins films produced by HW-CVD technique, under certain deposition conditions, have a porous structure [Vacuum 52 (1999) 147]. Therefore, in the presence of an alcohol, the OH group is adsorbed by the uncompensated bonds behaving as donor-like carriers leading to an increase in the current flowing through the material. This current enhancement is bias dependent in glass/ITO/i-a-Si:H/Al sensor and increases as the ethanol vapour pressure increases from 10-1mbar to atmospheric pressure. The response time of the current of the sensor and its recovery time are in the range of 10-50s at room temperature. Ethanol quantities above 50ppm can be detected. © Published by Elsevier B.V.

This work describes the fabrication and characterization of an improved version of large area (5mm×80mm with an active length of 70mm) flexible position sensitive detectors deposited onto polymeric substrates (polyimide-Kapton® VN). The new configuration presented by the sensor is based on a heterostructure of a-Si:H/ZnO:Al. The sensors were characterized by spectral response, photocurrent dependence as a function of light intensity and position detection measurements. The set of data obtained on one-dimensional position sensitive detectors based on the heterostructure show excellent performances with a maximum spectral response of 0.12A/W at 500nm and a non-linearity of ±10% over 70mm length. The produced sensors present a non-linearity higher than those ones produced on glass substrates, due to the different thermal coefficients exhibited by the polymer and the amorphous silicon film. In order to prove this behaviour, it was measured the defect density obtained by the constant photocurrent method on amorphous silicon deposited on polymeric substrates bended with different radius of curvature. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper we present the first results of thin film transistors produced completely at room temperature using ZnO as the active channel and silicon oxynitride as the gate dielectric. The ZnO-based thin film transistors (ZnO-TFT) present an average optical transmission (including the glass substrate) of 84% in the visible part of the spectrum. The ZnO-TFT operates in the enhancement mode with a threshold voltage of 1.8 V. A field effect mobility of 70 cm2/Vs, a gate voltage swing of 0.68 V/decade and an on-off ratio of 5×105 were obtained. The combination of transparency, high field-effect mobility and room temperature processing makes the ZnO-TFT very promising for the next generation of invisible and flexible electronics. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper we present results of indium doped zinc oxide deposited at room temperature by rf magnetron sputtering, with electron mobility as high as 60 cm2/Vs. The films present a resistivity as low as 5×10 -4 Ωcm with an optical transmittance of 85%. The structure of these films look-like polymorphous (mixed of different amorphous and nanocrystalline phases from different origins) as detected from XRD patterns (no clear peak exists) with a high smooth surface, as detected from SEM micrographs, highly important to ensure long life time when used in display devices.

Transparent and highly conducting gallium-doped zinc oxide films were successfully deposited by rf sputtering at room temperature. The lowest resistivity achieved was 2.6×10-4 Ω cm for a thickness of 1100 nm (sheet resistance ≈1.6 Ω/sq), with a Hall mobility of 18 cm2/Vs and a carrier concentration of 1.3×1021 cm-3. The films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure and a strongly preferred orientation along the c-axis. A linear dependence between the mobility and the crystallite size was obtained. The films present a transmittance in the visible spectra between 80 and 90% and a refractive index of approximately 2, which is very close to the value reported for bulk material. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In recent works large area hydrogenated amorphous silicon p-i-n structures with low conductivity doped layers were proposed as single element image sensors. The working principle of this type of sensor is based on the modulation, by the local illumination conditions, of the photocurrent generated by a light beam scanning the active area of the device. In order to evaluate the sensor capabilities is necessary to perform a response time characterization. This work focuses on the transient response of such sensor and on the influence of the carbon contents of the doped layers. In order to evaluate the response time a set of devices with different percentage of carbon incorporation in the doped layers is analyzed by measuring the scanner-induced photocurrent under different bias conditions. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin films have been deposited onto polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrates by r.f. magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The influence of the film thickness (from 70 to 890 nm) on the electrical, structural and morphological properties are presented. The lowest resistivity obtained was 5 × 10-4 Ω cm with a Hall mobility of 13.7 cm2/Vs and a carrier concentration of 8.6 × 1020 cm-3. These values were obtained by passivating the surface of the polymer with a thin silicon dioxide, so preventing the moisture and oxygen permeation inside the film. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.