Department of Materials Science and ‡Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California , Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
ACS Nano. 2017 Feb 28;11(2):2008-2014. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.6b08185. Epub 2017 Feb 14.
Semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes are ideal semiconductors for printed thin-film transistors due to their excellent electrical performance and intrinsic printability with solution-based deposition. However, limited by resolution and registration accuracy of current printing techniques, previously reported fully printed nanotube transistors had rather long channel lengths (>20 μm) and consequently low current-drive capabilities (<0.2 μA/μm). Here we report fully inkjet printed nanotube transistors with dramatically enhanced on-state current density of ∼4.5 μA/μm by downscaling the devices to a sub-micron channel length with top-contact self-aligned printing and employing high-capacitance ion gel as the gate dielectric. Also, the printed transistors exhibited a high on/off ratio of ∼10, low-voltage operation, and good mobility of ∼15.03 cm Vs. These advantageous features of our printed transistors are very promising for future high-definition printed displays and sensing systems, low-power consumer electronics, and large-scale integration of printed electronics.
半导体单壁碳纳米管由于其优异的电学性能和固有的溶液沉积可打印性，是用于印刷薄膜晶体管的理想半导体。然而，受限于当前印刷技术的分辨率和套准精度，以前报道的全印刷纳米管晶体管的沟道长度较长（>20 μm），因此电流驱动能力较低（<0.2 μA/μm）。在这里，我们通过将器件缩小到亚微米级的沟道长度，采用顶接触自对准印刷，并使用高电容离子凝胶作为栅介质，报道了全喷墨打印的纳米管晶体管，其导通电流密度显著提高到约 4.5 μA/μm。此外，所打印的晶体管还表现出高开关比（约为 10）、低工作电压和约 15.03 cm V s 的良好迁移率。我们所打印晶体管的这些优势特征非常有希望应用于未来的高分辨率印刷显示器和传感系统、低功耗消费电子产品以及大规模集成的印刷电子产品中。
