Non-hydrolytic ester-elimination reaction and its application in solution-processed zinc tin oxide thin film transistors

Solution-processed oxide thin films have many attractive features for various electronic applications as like a next generation display and flexible electronics. But a high temperature annealing is often required to obtain high quality oxide thin film and the applications of solution-processed thin films are limited. To overcome this limit, we adopted a strategy that utilizes chemical driving force in addition to thermal energy. We chose precursors that can react each other and condensate via non-hydrolytic ester elimination reaction. To prove our concept a zinc tin oxide thin film transistor was fabricated with thermal annealing at low-temperature down to 300 °C. Although the oxide film was processed with low-temperature annealing, fabricated thin film transistors were functional and mobility of those of devices exceeded 1.0 cm ² V ^-1 s ^-1.