Acrylate-based nanocomposite zirconium-dispersed polymer dielectric for flexible oxide thin-film transistors with a curvature radius of 2 mm

Abstract Novel hybrid dielectric film is synthesized at a low temperature of 150 °C using a solution process. Zirconium acrylate (ZrA) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) comprise the inorganic and organic components, respectively. The acrylate-based molecular structure of both ingredients allows the facile formation of hybrid ZrA/PMMA dielectric film with neither additional coupling agent nor ultraviolet photon irradiation. The high quality of the hybrid ZrA/PMMA dielectric film is confirmed by its high dielectric constant of 5.5 and low leakage current density of 1.7 × 10−8 A/cm2 at the electric field of 1 MV/cm. The indium gallium tin oxide (IGTO) transistors with the optimal ZrA/PMMA gate insulator layer are fabricated on the polyimide substrate at the maximum high temperature of 150 °C. They exhibit hysteresis-free high performance with high carrier mobility of 24.3 cm2V−1s−1, gate swing of 0.61 V/decade and ION/OFF ratio of 4 × 106. Owing to the intrinsic deformability of hybrid dielectric film, these transistors maintained electrical performance after 100 cycles of mechanical bending to the extremely small radius of curvature of 2 mm.