Issue 2, 2019

Origins of the variability of the electrical characteristics of solution-processed carbon nanotube thin-film transistors and integrated circuits

Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film transistors based on solution processing have great potential for use in future flexible and wearable device technologies. However, the considerable variability of their electrical characteristics remains a significant obstacle to their practical use. In this work, we investigated the origins of the variability of these electrical characteristics by performing statistical analysis based on spatial autocorrelation and Monte Carlo simulation. The spatial autocorrelation of the on-current decreased with increasing distance on the order of millimetres, showing that macroscopic non-uniformity of the CNT density was one of the causes of the characteristic variability. In addition, even in the local regime where the macroscopic variability is negligible, the variability was greater than that expected based on the Monte Carlo simulation. The CNT aggregation could be attributed to microscopic variability. We also investigated the variability of the properties of integrated circuits such as inverters and ring oscillators fabricated on flexible plastic film. All of the inverters worked well, and their threshold voltage variations were fairly small. As the number of stages in the ring oscillator increased, the yield decreased, although the oscillation frequency variability improved.

Graphical abstract: Origins of the variability of the electrical characteristics of solution-processed carbon nanotube thin-film transistors and integrated circuits

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Sep 2018
Accepted
15 Oct 2018
First published
15 Oct 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale Adv., 2019,1, 636-642

Origins of the variability of the electrical characteristics of solution-processed carbon nanotube thin-film transistors and integrated circuits

J. Hirotani, S. Kishimoto and Y. Ohno, Nanoscale Adv., 2019, 1, 636 DOI: 10.1039/C8NA00184G

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