SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE MATERIALS SCIENCE

Heterojunction oxide thin-film transistors with unprecedented electron mobility grown from solution Hendrik Faber,1*† Satyajit Das,1† Yen-Hung Lin,1 Nikos Pliatsikas,2 Kui Zhao,3 Thomas Kehagias,2 George Dimitrakopulos,2 Aram Amassian,3 Panos A. Patsalas,2* Thomas D. Anthopoulos1,3*

2017 © The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

Thin-film transistors made of solution-processed metal oxide semiconductors hold great promise for application in the emerging sector of large-area electronics. However, further advancement of the technology is hindered by limitations associated with the extrinsic electron transport properties of the often defect-prone oxides. We overcome this limitation by replacing the single-layer semiconductor channel with a low-dimensional, solution-grown In2O3/ZnO heterojunction. We find that In2O3/ZnO transistors exhibit band-like electron transport, with mobility values significantly higher than single-layer In2O3 and ZnO devices by a factor of 2 to 100. This marked improvement is shown to originate from the presence of free electrons confined on the plane of the atomically sharp heterointerface induced by the large conduction band offset between In2O3 and ZnO. Our finding underscores engineering of solution-grown metal oxide heterointerfaces as an alternative strategy to thin-film transistor development and has the potential for widespread technological applications.

INTRODUCTION

Transparent metal oxides have emerged as a promising family of compound semiconductors for a range of applications in the field of largearea optoelectronics because of a variety of assets, including tunable energy band structure, high charge carrier mobility, optical transparency, mechanical flexibility and durability, and outstanding chemical stability (1–5). A further prominent asset is their ease of processing from solution phase at low temperatures (6, 7) and under ambient conditions that would alter our perception and modus operandi in semiconductor industry by gradually abolishing established vacuum-based process technologies for widespread technological applications, especially in the field of thin-film transistor (TFT) electronics. Currently, metal oxide TFTs with electron mobilities exceeding 10 cm2/V·s have been achieved (8–13), and numerous new approaches to further enhance the device performance have been proposed and demonstrated (6, 14, 15). It is now well established that the measured carrier mobility may be affected by several factors, including (i) the intrinsic mobility of the semiconductor used, (ii) the microstructural quality of the semiconducting layer, and (iii) the device architecture itself. A notable strategy that has been successfully used to enhance the performance of metal oxide TFTs in the past few years is based on the use of multilayer channels (16–21). Although the exact mechanism(s) underpinning performance enhancement is still under debate, it has been proposed that under certain circumstances, electron transfer and confinement at the heterointerface can occur because of conduction band (CB) offset (17, 21–23) in a process similar to that observed in conventional high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) made of AlGaAs/GaAs heterointerface channels (24–29). In these devices, the formation of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the critical heterointerface enables the realization of transistors with electron mobilities close to the theoretical limit set by phonon scattering in the ab1

Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, U.K. 2Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece. 3Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia. *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] (T.D.A.); h.faber@ imperial.ac.uk (H.F.); [email protected] (P.A.P.) †These authors contributed equally to this work. Faber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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sence of impurity scattering in the semiconductor (27–29). In terms of the underling transport physics, metal oxide–based TFTs that resemble traditional HEMTs have been produced by various growth techniques, including radio-frequency (RF) sputtering (16, 30), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) (31), metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) (32), and atomic layer deposition (21). One of the most extensively studied metal oxide heterointerface systems that is known to lead to 2DEG formation is that of ZnO/ ZnMgO (33–37). The latter relies on electron confinement at the heterointerface due to a large CB offset and polar surfaces (34, 35). For optimal interface quality, epitaxial material growth is commonly carried out via MBE or pulsed laser deposition on single-crystal substrates, such as sapphire or ScAlMgO4 (33, 37). However, it was shown that 2DEG could also form in ZnO/ZnMgO heterointerfaces grown on glass substrates via less elaborate techniques, such as RF sputtering (36). Despite their polycrystalline nature, the heterointerfaces exhibited enhanced sheet electron concentration and mobility with a characteristic temperature-independent behavior (36). We recently reported evidence of quantized energy states in lowdimensional, solution-grown In2O3 (38) and ZnO layers (39) and demonstrated metal oxide superlattice TFTs with electron mobilities in the range of 25 to 45 cm2/V·s (22). However, these archetypal devices rely on complex manufacturing and involve elaborate multilayered architectures (21, 22). Thus, a major challenge in further advancing the performance of metal oxide TFTs lies in the development of high-quality oxide heterostructures via scalable manufacturing processes (7). Here, we report the growth of low-dimensional metal oxide heterostructures consisting exclusively of In2O3 and ZnO layers grown from solution phase and their implementation in high electron mobility TFTs. We show that ultrathin (≤13-nm) In2O3/ZnO heterojunctions can be grown reliably over large areas at 160 K to a maximum value of ~12 cm2/V·s at room temperature. The activation energy EA determined from the 160 K ≤ T ≤ 300 K region is ~40 meV and is associated with the presence of electron traps in the In2O3 layer. A similar behavior is observed for single-layer ZnO TFTs and is consistent with TLC because the g exponent of mLIN does depend on the temperature (30). In contrast, In2O3/ZnO heterojunction devices exhibit a temperature-independent mLIN across the entire temperature range investigated (78 to 300 K). These results indicate that electron transport in In2O3/ZnO TFTs is most likely governed by PC, which is exclusively associated with the spatial distribution of the potential barriers (30). Therefore, the electrical measurements point to the fact that the electron conduction process in single-layer In2O3 and ZnO TFTs is fundamentally different from that in In2O3/ZnO heterojunction devices. To determine the origin of the different electron transport mechanisms, we investigated the surface topography of each oxide layer by means of intermittent contact mode atomic force microscopy (AFM). Figure 2 (A to D) shows AFM images for Si++/SiO2, Si++/SiO2/In2O3, Si++/SiO2/ZnO, and Si++/SiO2/In2O3/ZnO. The differences between the various surface topographies are better illustrated in the height histograms of Fig. 2E. As expected, SiO2 exhibits a featureless and atomically smooth topography with a root mean square (RMS) roughness (sRMS) of ~0.18 nm. Remarkably, spray-grown In2O3 layers (Fig. 2B) also exhibit very flat surfaces with sRMS = 0.42 nm. We note that the latter value is less than half of the unit cell size of cubic In2O3 (41), and as a result, the sample’s surface appears almost featureless over several micrometers. The latter is comparable to the surface characteristics of semiconductor quantum-well structures grown via sophisticated vacuum-based techniques, such as MBE (42), MOCVD (43), and metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (44), despite being processed by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis in ambient atmosphere. Contrary to In2O3, the surface topography of singlelayer ZnO (Fig. 2C) reveals the existence of crystallites with a relatively high surface roughness of sRMS ~ 1.57 nm. When ZnO is spin-coated onto In2O3 to form the In2O3/ZnO heterojunction (Fig. 2D), a similar surface topography is observed but with the ZnO crystallites appearing slightly enlarged. We attribute this to the different contact angles of aqueous solutions on SiO2 and In2O3 surfaces and the different conditions under which ZnO crystallization and growth occur (45, 46). These larger ZnO crystallites are responsible for the increased surface roughness (sRMS = 2.32 nm) of the In2O3/ZnO heterojunction (Fig. 2E). 2 of 9

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE A

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Ultrasonic nozzle

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Pipet Shadow mask

In2O3 precursor

Annealing in air

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In2O3

ZnO

ΔT

4–7 nm

Si++/SiO2

Si++/SiO2

Si++/SiO2

Hot plate (250°C)

S D Semiconductor Si++/SiO2

4–6 nm

Hot plate (210°C)

D

E In2O3/ZnO

12 V

10

In2O3

ΔV G =

ID (mA)

8

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Sample holder

V V

6 4

ZnO

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F

20

40 60 VD (V)

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0

20

40 60 VD (V)

80

100

(VG – VP)

(VG  VT)

μFE (cm /V.s)

ID ( A )

In2O3

VT = –7.3 V

100

H μFE =

In2O3/ZnO

80

μFE =

(VG  VT)

In O /ZnO

VT = 1.3 V

VG (V)

In O /ZnO μLIN (cm /V.s)

VG (V)

In O

In O VG (V)

/T (

/K)

Fig. 1. Material growth and transistor fabrication and characterization. (A) Schematic of the ultrasonic spray pyrolysis process used to grow the In2O3 layers. (B) Spin casting of ZnO onto spray-deposited In2O3 followed by thermal annealing at 210°C in air. (C) Transistor fabrication is completed with the deposition of the Al S-D electrodes via vacuum sublimation through shadow masks. (D) Transfer characteristics measured in the saturation regime (VD = 100 V) for single-layer ZnO and In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors. The channel width W and length L were 1 mm and 100 mm, respectively, for all devices. (E) Output characteristics of In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO transistors. (F) Plots of ID1/2 versus VG for In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors. (G) Gate-voltage dependence of the electron mobilities in singlelayer In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors. The solid lines represent fits according to their respective power law equations. Note that a double-logarithmic plot of the data can additionally be found in fig. S1. (H) Arrhenius plot of the electron mobility (linear) of single-layer In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors as a function of inverse temperature measured between 78 and 300 K and extracted according to Eq. 3 at VG − VT = 20 V.

The microstructure of the In2O3/ZnO heterojunctions was further examined by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Figure 3A shows the cross-sectional HRTEM image of a representative In2O3/ZnO heterojunction grown on SiO2. The thickness of this particular heterojunction is approximately 10 nm and is characterized by the atomically sharp In2O3/ZnO heterointerface—a truly remarkable finding if one considers the simplicity of the solution deposition techniques used. For this particular sample, the ZnO layer was approximately 6 nm thick and featured randomly oriented nanoFaber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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crystals on the surface of In2O3. On the contrary, the In2O3 layer had the form of highly crystalline elongated platelets that are 4 to 5 nm thick. Geometric phase analysis (GPA) performed with a spatial resolution of 0.4 nm confirms that the microstructure of In2O3 is that of elongated platelets with an average length of 35 ± 5 nm along the lateral direction (see section S2). Although no persistent growth texture for the In2O3 crystals could be identified, there is a trend amid them to grow with the [001] direction of their Ia3 body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal lattice roughly parallel (fig. S2), or occasionally perpendicular, to the SiO2 3 of 9

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE SiO2 z = 1.5 nm

A

In2O3 z = 3 nm

B

100 nm

100 nm

E D

SiO (

Frequency (a.u.)

In2O3/ZnO z = 15 nm

ZnO z = 9 nm

C

In O (

100 nm

nm)

nm) ZnO (

nm) In O /ZnO (

nm)

100 nm

Height (nm) Fig. 2. Surface topography of single and heterojunction metal oxide transistor channels. AFM images of the surfaces of (A) SiO2, (B) single-layer In2O3, (C) singlelayer ZnO, and (D) In2O3/ZnO heterojunction. The indium oxide layer exhibits very flat areas by itself with only hints of crystalline features visible, whereas both the neat ZnO and bilayer surface show pronounced nanocrystals. (E) Height distributions extracted from the AFM images in (A) to (D). a.u., arbitrary units.

ZnO

A

B

ZnO 0.24 nm

Protective layer

0.16 nm

[101]

[110]

0.12 nm [202]

In2O3 0.36 nm

5 nm

SiO2

0.36 nm

In2O3

[220]

Fig. 3. HRTEM analysis of solution-processed In2O3/ZnO heterostructures. (A) Representative HRTEM image of the In2O3/ZnO heterostructure deposited on SiO2. (B) FFT patterns obtained from the selected areas of the In2O3 and ZnO layers highlighted in (A).

surface. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis (Fig. 3B) of the highlighted regions in Fig. 3A provided further evidence that the ZnO layer is nanocrystalline with the three prominent spacings corresponding to the [202], [110], and [101] planes of the hexagonal wurtzite structure, whereas for the In2O3 layer, the lattice spacing of 0.36 nm corresponds to the [220] crystal plane of the bcc structure of In2O3. Although no straightforward structural relation between the In2O3 and ZnO layers could be identified, the heterointerface is continuous with no evidence of materials intermixing (Fig. 3A and fig. S3). This interesting microstructural feature may be due to the chemistry and low viscosity of the ammonium hydroxide–based precursor formulation used to grow Faber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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the ZnO layers. Thus, the HRTEM data verify that sequential solution deposition of In2O3 and ZnO leads to the formation of a seamless In2O3/ZnO heterojunction with low interface roughness and without evidence of alloying (see section S2). We have combined x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with mild in situ Ar+ etching (Fig. 4A) to study the electronic states in bare In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction as a function of etching depth. The same method was also used to acquire the elemental profile and energy band structure of the In2O3/ZnO heterointerface. The integral area of the In-3d, Zn-2p, O-1s, C-1s (adventitious carbon), and Si-2p photoelectron lines was used after background subtraction and taking 4 of 9

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE A

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SiO2

Aperture

Focusing monochromator

Ion gun

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Concentration (at %)

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O

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In O /ZnO

E In2O3

In O s s

s s s s s s s

Approaching In2O3 interface

Energy w.r.t. EF (eV)

s

s

0.36 eV

1 0

- --

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–1

3 CB

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EF

2.4 eV VB VB

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–2 –3

ZnO

1 eV

7 8

Energy w.r.t. vacuum (–eV)

D

VBO (eV)

Photoelectron intensity (a.u.)

C

–4

Binding energy (eV)

ZnO thickness (nm)

Fig. 4. XPS analysis of single-layer In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunctions. (A) Schematic drawing of the XPS depth profiling measurement setup. (B) Elemental depth profile of the bilayer film stack on the Si/SiO2 substrate. Inset: HRTEM image of the heterointerface studied by XPS where the vertical dashed lines indicate the In2O3/ZnO and SiO2/In2O3 interfaces. at %, atomic %. (C) The evolution of the spectral position of the In-3d core level with respect to the etching time for SiO2/In2O3/ZnO (solid lines) and for SiO2/In2O3 (dashed lines); note that the times indicated for the SiO2/In2O3/ZnO system correspond exclusively to ZnO etching. (D) The VBO between ZnO and In2O3 versus the thickness of the ZnO overlayer determined from Eq. 2. (E) Energy band diagram of the In2O3/ZnO heterointerface reconstructed on the basis of XPS, optical absorption, and Kelvin probe measurements. Energies are shown with respect to (w.r.t.) Fermi energy, EF, and vacuum level.

into account the relevant sensitivity factors. ZnO exhibit a slight oxygen deficiency, whereas In2O3 is nearly stoichiometric. For the chemical analysis of the layers, special attention was given to the O-1s core-level spectra (fig. S4), which are very sensitive to the chemical state of O and to the neighboring atoms (8, 47–49). Ultrathin layers of ZnO and In2O3 were found to contain Zn–O and In–O bonds in their respective lattice sites, with minor contributions from Zn–OH and In– OH detected on their surfaces. Figure 4B shows the depth-resolved elemental composition of the low-dimensional In2O3/ZnO heterostructure acquired through successive XPS spectra at varying etching time (depth). The small amount of In detected at the surface of the heterojunction (etching time, 0 s) is attributed to the small layer thickness of ZnO (4 to 6 nm), which is comparable to the escape depth of the In-3d photoelectrons. The same applies for the In2O3 layer because it is transparent to the Si-2p photoelectrons, resulting in the apparent presence of Si at an etching time of ~150 s. The XPS data are in agreement with HRTEM analysis (Fig. 3) and verify the structural and chemical composition of the In2O3/ZnO heterojunction. Figure 4C shows the In-3d core-level spectra recorded at different etching times for bare In2O3 (dashed lines) and In2O3/ZnO heteroFaber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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junction (solid lines) (more details on the In-3d and Zn-2p core-level spectra are presented in figs. S5 to S8 and in the relevant discussion found in the online Supplementary Materials). No spectral variation in the core-level spectra of bare In2O3 is observed (dashed lines), with increasing etching time indicating a size-independent electronic structure. On the contrary, there is a strong dependence of the In-3d corelevel spectra with etching depth for the SiO2/In2O3/ZnO heterojunction (solid lines). The latter is attributed to the Fermi level pinning due to electron transfer from ZnO to In2O3 (22). To quantify this effect, we studied the valence band offset (VBO) between ZnO and In2O3 using the experimentally determined relative spectral positions of the Zn-2p and In-3d core levels, taking into account the value of the upper edge of the VB spectra of bulk In2O3 and ZnO (fig. S9) and following the method proposed by Kraut et al. (50). The VBO between the In2O3 and ZnO can be determined using the equation bulk bulk  EInVB Þ VBO ¼ ðEIn3d

exp

exp

bulk bulk  EZnVB Þ  ðEIn3d  EZn2p Þ ðEZn2p

ð2Þ 5 of 9

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE where In-3d and Zn-2p are the spectral positions of the corresponding core-level spectra, and VB indicates the upper edge of the VB spectra of bulk In2O3 and ZnO; “bulk” and “exp” superscripts indicate the values obtained from bulk (>20 nm) and ultrathin samples (5 nm. The corresponding CB offset can be determined by considering the bandgap energy Eg of the individual In2O3 (3.76 eV) and ZnO (3.33 eV) layers (see fig. S10). Figure 4E shows a schematic of the resulting energy band diagram of the In2O3/ZnO heterojunction. The electron transfer from the CB of ZnO to that of In2O3 is attributed to the CB offset, resulting in the formation of a spatially confined sheet of free electrons at the vicinity of the interface on the In2O3 side. To verify the existence of the confined charge, we evaluated the electron concentration across the heterojunction using capacitancevoltage (C-V) analysis of metal-insulator-semiconductor capacitor structures. The C-V technique is often used to verify the presence and location of the confined changes across the heterostructures because it enables quantitative analysis of the apparent free carrier concentration with high spatial resolution (33, 34). In heterointerfaces where a 2D-confined sheet of electrons is present, a clear spike in the carrier profile should exist, indicating the exact position of the critical interface (33, 34). The experimental results shown in fig. S11 (A and B) reveal the presence of an increased concentration of free electrons located right at the expected position of the In2O3/ZnO heterointerface. The spike in the electron profile reaches a maximum value of ~3.1 × 1019 cm−3 and has a width of 1 to 2 nm. The latter value is expected to be determined primarily by the interface roughness and is in agreement with the surface height histograms in Fig. 2E. The CB discontinuity evaluated via XPS and optical absorption spectroscopy measurements, combined with the high structural quality of the In2O3/ZnO heterointerface and the presence of a 2D-confined sheet of electrons at the heterointerface, supports the PC mechanism observed in In2O3/ZnO transistors. DISCUSSION

For the first time, low-dimensional and atomically sharp In2O3/ZnO heterojunctions have been grown from solution phase at low temperatures and incorporated in TFTs. Although heterojunction oxide TFTs have been previously realized using various solution-processed amorphous ternary and quaternary metal oxide compounds, such as InZnO, AlInZnO, or InGaO (19, 20, 51–53), it has been proven challenging to increase the electron mobility beyond values obtained from the individual constituent materials (23). The In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors developed in this work not only surpass the performance of single-layer In2O3 and ZnO TFTs but also compare favorably to state-of-the-art vacuum-processed devices (4, 9, 54). The exceptional level of performance is attributed to three main factors: (i) the ability to grow highly crystalline In2O3 layers via ambient ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (Fig. 3), (ii) the formation of a seamless and dislocation-free In2O3/ZnO heterointerface upon sequential deposition of the top ZnO layer via spin casting (Fig. 3A), and (iii) the existence of a sheet of free electrons confined in the xy plane of the atomically sharp In2O3/ZnO heterointerface due to the large CB discontinuity (Fig. 4E). Additional factors that could potentially contribute to the enhanced performance include the passivation of In2O3 surface defects by ZnO and/or the suppression of the injection barrier for electrons due to Schottky barrier lowering because of the existence of surface electron accumulation. Faber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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The combined effects of these unique attributes results to the marked change in the electron transport mechanism manifested first as an increase in electron mobility (Fig. 1D) and, second, in the transition from a trap-limited to a percolation-dominated conduction process (Fig. 1G). Further evidence supporting this fundamental change is provided by the temperature dependence of mLIN, where the temperature-activated electron transport in single-layer In2O3 devices (Fig. 1H) transforms to a temperature-independent behavior for In2O3/ZnO heterojunction TFTs, which is a characteristic indicative of trap-free band-like electron transport not previously observed in metal oxide TFTs. The presence of a smooth and highly crystalline In2O3 layer is of critical importance because it facilitates the formation of the atomically sharp In2O3/ZnO heterointerface upon sequential processing of the top ZnO layer without alloying (Fig. 3A). The latter feature combined with the significant CB energy offset between In2O3 and ZnO (Fig. 4E) results in the formation of a space charge layer that is confined in the out-of-plane z direction but highly delocalized along the 2D heterointerface. This quasi-2D free-electron system, which was experimentally determined for the first time by depth-resolved XPS (Fig. 4, C to E) and C-V carrier profiling measurements (fig. S11), facilitates a substantial increase in the concentration of free electrons within the crystalline In2O3 layer while avoiding adverse effects associated with Coulomb scattering that are often seen in conventional doped semiconductor transistors (17, 28). To this end, one may also argue that the higher electron concentration would shift the Fermi energy of the heterojunction closer the CB of In2O3 (Fig. 4E), facilitating access to the extended states which would otherwise have remained inaccessible. On the other hand, the ultrathin nature of the In2O3 layer (Fig. 3A) may lead to quantization of the energy states (subbands) (38) perpendicular to the transport plane (z direction) without affecting their in-plane delocalization. The low-dimensional and exceptional structural quality of these solution-grown In2O3 layers could one day lead to the observation of transport processes similar to those reported for traditional 2DEG heterojunction devices (18, 28). However, more work is required to reveal the true potential of these systems and devices based on them. Although this work focuses on the In2O3/ZnO heterointerface, our findings provide guidelines for the design of metal oxide TFTs with performance characteristics potentially superior to any existing thinfilm semiconductor technology, either via further heterointerface engineering or through the use of different materials and/or advanced doping schemes (27–29). For example, incorporation of suitable seed layers predeposited from solution onto the substrate could assist in controlling and hence improving the crystal quality of the subsequently deposited In2O3 layer with direct impact on the quality of the resulting heterointerface. Similarly, n-type doping of ZnO using newly developed routes (55) could provide an additional parameter that could be explored to tune the confined electrons, and hence the TFT characteristics, in a similar manner to modulation-doped AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction field-effect transistors (27–29, 56). More broadly, the use of high-mobility In2O3/ZnO heterointerfaces could be extended to transparent conductive electrodes, where the incorporation of multiple “charged” high-mobility heterointerfaces could be exploited to increase the layer conductivity of solution-processed transparent superlattices, hence enabling their use as conductive electrodes in large-area optoelectronics. Last, our results identify the use of solution-grown In2O3/ZnO heterointerfaces as a powerful method to enhance the electron transport 6 of 9

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE in metal oxide TFTs beyond single material–based devices. It also suggests that solution-processed, low-dimensional metal oxide semiconductors could well be entering the realm of quantum electronics and that the resulting devices may one day compete directly with mature semiconductor technologies but with the added advantage of being produced at a small fraction of the cost.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Precursor solutions and deposition techniques Metal oxide semiconductors were deposited in ambient air either via ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (In2O3) or spin coating (ZnO). For spray pyrolysis of In2O3, indium nitrate [(In(NO3)3] (99.99%, Indium Corporation of America) was dissolved in deionized (DI) water at a concentration of 30 mg/ml. The resulting solution was stirred at room temperature for 30 min and subsequently sprayed onto the heated sample surface (250°C) using a liquid flow rate of 2 ml/min through a stencil mask to achieve rudimentary patterning. The total time for the cyclic spray deposition step was 10 min. For spin coating deposition of ZnO films, the precursor solution was formed by dissolving zinc oxide hydrate (ZnO·H2O, 97%, Sigma-Aldrich) in ammonium hydroxide [50% (v/v) aqueous solution, Alfa Aesar] at a concentration of 10 mg/ml and stirred at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours. The spin coating parameters used for the spin coating of ZnO was 4000 rpm for 30 s. As-deposited films were subjected to thermal annealing at 210° to 250°C for 30 min. All chemicals were used as received. Transistor fabrication and characterization Transistors were fabricated in bottom-gate, top-contact architecture on wafers of highly doped Si (Si++) equipped with a 400-nm-thick thermally grown layer of SiO2 acting as the gate electrode and the gate dielectric, respectively. The Si++/SiO2 wafers were cleaned by subsequent ultrasonication in DI water, acetone, and isopropanol for 10 min each, followed by ultraviolet/ozone treatment for 15 min. Deposition of the metal oxide layers was performed using the methods described above. Transistor fabrication was completed with the deposition of top Al S-D electrodes under high vacuum (~10−6 mbar). The channel width (W) and length (L) of the resulting devices were 1000 and 100 mm, respectively. The electrical characterization of the transistors was carried out at room temperature in a nitrogen glove box using an Agilent B2902A parameter analyzer or at different temperatures in a cryogenic probe station (ST-500, Janis Research) under high vacuum (10−5 mbar) using a Keithley 4200 semiconductor parameter analyzer. The field-effect mobility was extracted from the transfer characteristics in the linear and saturation regimes using the gradual channel approximation model mLIN ¼

msat ¼

L ∂ID;lin W Ci VD ∂VG

ð3Þ

L ∂2 ID;sat W Ci ∂ VG2

ð4Þ

where L and W are the channel length and width, respectively, Ci is the capacitance of the gate dielectric, VD is the S-D voltage, and VG is the gate voltage. Faber et al., Sci. Adv. 2017; 3 : e1602640

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Material characterization techniques Topography and roughness of semiconductor samples were measured via intermittent contact mode AFM (Agilent 5500 AFM system). A Titan 80-300 Super Twin microscope (FEI Company) operating at 300 kV and a JEOL 2011 electron microscope operating at 200 kV were used to perform HRTEM imaging and analysis. Two TEM sample preparation techniques were used as follows: (i) Ion beam milling (Ga ion beam, 30 kV, and 9 nA) to cut a specimen from the bulk sample, which was then attached to a Cu grid in a lift-out method and further thinned down to ca. 50 nm thick and cleaned (2 kV and 28 pA) to remove areas that were damaged during the thinning process. Before the milling process, the sample surface was protected against ion bombardment via electron beam–assisted carbon and platinum deposition. (ii) The standard sandwich technique, followed by tripod polishing to reach a 30-nm-edge thickness. Electron transparency to less than 15 nm was achieved by precision low-voltage (5 to 1 keV) Ar+ ion milling in a Gatan precision ion polishing system. Core-level and VB XPS spectra were acquired in a KRATOS AXIS Ultra DLD system equipped with a monochromic AlKa x-ray source, a hemispherical sector electron analyzer, and a multichannel electron detector. Depth profile analysis was performed by mild, destructive in situ sputter etching using a 500-eV defocused Ar+ beam to achieve the required depth resolution. The XPS measurements were acquired using 20-eV pass energy, resulting in a full width at half maximum of the Ag-3d peak of less than 500 meV. Spectral shifts due to charging of the surface were evaluated and subtracted on the basis of the spectral positions of the C-1s peak of adventitious carbon and Ar-2p peak after sputter etching.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/ content/full/3/3/e1602640/DC1 section S1. Power law fits of electron mobility section S2. Geometric phase analysis section S3. Core-level spectra section S4. Tauc analysis of optical absorption spectra section S5. Carrier depth profiling via C-V analysis fig. S1. Log10-log10 plots of the field-effect electron mobility (mFE) as a function of gate voltage (VG) for single-layer In2O3 and In2O3/ZnO heterojunction transistors. fig. S2. Composite diffractogram obtained by FFT of an HRTEM image of an In2O3/ZnO sample, along the growth direction of the heterojunction. fig. S3. Electron microscopy analysis. fig. S4. O-1s core-level spectra. fig. S5. Depth profile of the In-3d core-level spectra. fig. S6. Depth profile of the Zn-2p core-level spectra. fig. S7. Variation of the spectral position of the In-3d peak versus the [Zn] composition, which is proportional to the ZnO thickness. fig. S8. Variation of the spectral position of the Zn-2p peak versus the [Zn] composition, which is proportional to the ZnO thickness. fig. S9. The XPS valence band spectra of thick and pure In2O3 (blue) and ZnO (black); the red dashed lines are used to determine the upper edge of the VB. fig. S10. Optical absorption spectra. fig. S11. Capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements. References (57, 58)

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TFTs. H.F., S.D., Y.-H.L., and T.D.A. fabricated the metal oxide samples, designed and conducted the charge transport experiments, analyzed the experimental data, and wrote the manuscript. N.P. and P.A.P. designed and conducted the XPS measurements and wrote part of the manuscript. T.K., G.D., K.Z., and A.A. conducted the electron microscopy measurements and relevant data analysis and provided feedback on the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors. Submitted 26 October 2016 Accepted 10 February 2017 Published 31 March 2017 10.1126/sciadv.1602640 Citation: H. Faber, S. Das, Y.-H. Lin, N. Pliatsikas, K. Zhao, T. Kehagias, G. Dimitrakopulos, A. Amassian, P. A. Patsalas, T. D. Anthopoulos, Heterojunction oxide thin-film transistors with unprecedented electron mobility grown from solution. Sci. Adv. 3, e1602640 (2017).

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