Tunable electrical properties of NiO thin films and p-type thin-film transistors

Oxide p-type transistors are expected in realization of complementary circuits. Here, amorphous p-type NiO thin films were deposited on glass substrates by radio frequency (rf) sputtering at various growth temperatures and O2/Ar flow ratios. The influence of growth temperature and O2/Ar flow ratio on the structural and electrical properties of amorphous NiO thin films has been systematically investigated by means of characterizations from X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy, and electrical measurements. Pure Ar ambient with room temperature (RT) growth of NiO films shows the highest mobility of 1.07 cm2/Vs, and hole concentration of 2.78 × 1017 cm− 3. Initial p-type NiO-based thin film transistors grown by magnetron sputtering demonstrated a mobility of 0.05 cm2/Vs, a threshold voltage (Vth) of − 8.6 V, subthreshold swing (S) of 2.6 V/dec, the current on-off ratio of 103, respectively.