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Nano Research 2018, 11(8): 4356-4367 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2025-9
Research Article | Issue | Published: 04 April 2018

Large-area and highly uniform carbon nanotube film for high-performance thin film transistors

Show Author's Information Guodong Dong1,§,  Jie Zhao1,§,  Lijun Shen2,3( ),  Jiye Xia1,  Hu Meng4,  Wenhuan Yu2,3,  Qi Huang1,  Hua Han2,3,  Xuelei Liang1( ),  Lianmao Peng1
Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Department of ElectronicsPeking UniversityBeijing100871China
Institute of AutomationChinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100190China
University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100049China
BOE Technology Group Co.Ltd.Beijing100176China

§ Guodong Dong and Jie Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
thin film, carbon nanotube, transistor, large area, uniform
Cite this article:
Dong G, Zhao J, Shen L, et al. Large-area and highly uniform carbon nanotube film for high-performance thin film transistors. Nano Research, 2018, 11(8): 4356-4367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2025-9
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Carbon nanotube thin film transistors (CNT-TFTs) are a potential TFT technology for future high-performance macroelectronics. Practical application of CNT-TFTs requires the production of large-area, highly uniform, density-controllable, repeatable, and high-throughput CNT thin films. In this study, CNT films were fabricated on 4-inch Si wafers and 2.5th generation (G2.5) backplane glasses (370 mm × 470 mm) by dip coating using a chloroform-dispersed high-purity semiconducting CNT solution. The CNT density was controlled by the solution concentration and coating times, but was almost independent of the substrate lifting speed (1–450 mm·min-1), which enables high-throughput CNT thin film production. We developed an image processing software to efficiently characterize the density and uniformity of the large-area CNT films. Using the software, we confirmed that the CNT films are highly uniform with coefficients of variance (CV) < 10% on 4-inch Si wafers and ~ 13.8% on G2.5 backplane glasses. High-performance CNT-TFTs with a mobility of 45–55 cm2·V-1·s-1 were obtained using the fabricated CNT films with a high-performance uniformity (CV ≈ 11%–13%) on a 4-inch wafer. To our knowledge, this is the first fabrication and detailed characterization of such large-area, high-purity, semiconducting CNT films for TFT applications, which is a significant step toward manufacturing CNT-TFTs.


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About this article

Large-area and highly uniform carbon nanotube film for high-performance thin film transistors

Show Author's information Guodong Dong1,§, Jie Zhao1,§, Lijun Shen2,3( ), Jiye Xia1, Hu Meng4, Wenhuan Yu2,3, Qi Huang1, Hua Han2,3, Xuelei Liang1( ), Lianmao Peng1
Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Department of ElectronicsPeking UniversityBeijing100871China
Institute of AutomationChinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100190China
University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100049China
BOE Technology Group Co.Ltd.Beijing100176China

§ Guodong Dong and Jie Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Carbon nanotube thin film transistors (CNT-TFTs) are a potential TFT technology for future high-performance macroelectronics. Practical application of CNT-TFTs requires the production of large-area, highly uniform, density-controllable, repeatable, and high-throughput CNT thin films. In this study, CNT films were fabricated on 4-inch Si wafers and 2.5th generation (G2.5) backplane glasses (370 mm × 470 mm) by dip coating using a chloroform-dispersed high-purity semiconducting CNT solution. The CNT density was controlled by the solution concentration and coating times, but was almost independent of the substrate lifting speed (1–450 mm·min-1), which enables high-throughput CNT thin film production. We developed an image processing software to efficiently characterize the density and uniformity of the large-area CNT films. Using the software, we confirmed that the CNT films are highly uniform with coefficients of variance (CV) < 10% on 4-inch Si wafers and ~ 13.8% on G2.5 backplane glasses. High-performance CNT-TFTs with a mobility of 45–55 cm2·V-1·s-1 were obtained using the fabricated CNT films with a high-performance uniformity (CV ≈ 11%–13%) on a 4-inch wafer. To our knowledge, this is the first fabrication and detailed characterization of such large-area, high-purity, semiconducting CNT films for TFT applications, which is a significant step toward manufacturing CNT-TFTs.

Keywords: thin film, carbon nanotube, transistor, large area, uniform

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 19 November 2017
Revised: 09 February 2018
Accepted: 13 February 2018
Published: 04 April 2018
Issue date: August 2018

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (No. 2016YFA0201902), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61621061), Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (Nos. Z171100002017001 and Z161100000216146), and Chinese Academy of Science (No. YZ201671). The authors thank Dr. Wei He from Focus e-Beam Technology Co., Ltd. for helpful discussion on high throughput SEM technology. We also thank Prof. Shimin Hou and Dr. Hao Wang for valuable discussion.

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