A nanoparticulate indium tin oxide field-effect transistor with solid electrolyte gating

Ten Years Progress of Electrical Detection of Heavy Metal Ions (HMIs) Using Various Field-Effect Transistor (FET) Nanosensors: A Review

Heavy metal pollution remains a major concern for the public today, in line with the growing population and global industrialization. Heavy metal ion (HMI) is a threat to human and environmental safety, even at low concentrations, thus rapid and continuous HMI monitoring is essential. Among the sensors available for HMI detection, the field-effect transistor (FET) sensor demonstrates promising potential for fast and real-time detection. The aim of this review is to provide a condensed overview of the contribution of certain semiconductor substrates in the development of chemical and biosensor FETs for HMI detection in the past decade. A brief introduction of the FET sensor along with its construction and configuration is presented in the first part of this review. Subsequently, the FET sensor deployment issue and FET intrinsic limitation screening effect are also discussed, and the solutions to overcome these shortcomings are summarized. Later, we summarize the strategies for HMIs' electrical detection, mechanisms, and sensing performance on nanomaterial semiconductor FET transducers, including silicon, carbon nanotubes, graphene, AlGaN/GaN, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD), black phosphorus, organic and inorganic semiconductor. Finally, concerns and suggestions regarding detection in the real samples using FET sensors are highlighted in the conclusion.

Effect of semiconductor surface homogeneity and interface quality on electrical performance of inkjet-printed oxide field-effect transistors

In semiconductor technology, the crystallite size of semiconductors is often directly correlated with their superior intrinsic and device mobility. However, when solution-processed, large crystals may bring in higher surface roughness and layer inhomogeneity, which can deteriorate the interface quality and device performance. Along this line, a thorough study on printed oxide field-effect transistors (FETs) has been performed, where the relative significance of crystallite size, surface roughness and spatial homogeneity are evaluated. The comprehensive investigations suggest the spatial homogeneity to be more important than crystallite size in solution processed/printed devices. It is demonstrated that the addition of a small amount of high boiling point polyol in the precursor ink can create large nucleation sites, resulting in reduced average crystallite size, superior inter-particle neck formation, and high spatial homogeneity. Interestingly, carefully estimated device mobility of these polyol-derived In₂O₃ FETs (∼50-55 cm² V^-1 s^-1) is found to be larger than the FETs prepared without polyols, although the crystallite size of the former is an order of magnitude smaller. The high spatial homogeneity and the large mobility values of the polyol-derived In₂O₃ transistors, as compared to the amorphous oxide FETs, lowers the importance of the latter, at least within the solution-processed/printed electronics domain.

The influence of fibril composition and dimension on the performance of paper gated oxide transistors

Paper electronics is a topic of great interest due the possibility of having low-cost, disposable and recyclable electronic devices. The final goal is to make paper itself an active part of such devices. In this work we present new approaches in the selection of tailored paper, aiming to use it simultaneously as substrate and dielectric in oxide based paper field effect transistors (FETs). From the work performed, it was observed that the gate leakage current in paper FETs can be reduced using a dense microfiber/nanofiber cellulose paper as the dielectric. Also, the stability of these devices against changes in relative humidity is improved. On other hand, if the pH of the microfiber/nanofiber cellulose pulp is modified by the addition of HCl, the saturation mobility of the devices increases up to 16 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), with an ION/IOFF ratio close to 10(5).

Nanoglasses: a new kind of noncrystalline materials

Nanoglasses are a new class of noncrystalline solids. They differ from today's glasses due to their microstructure that resembles the microstructure of polycrystals. They consist of regions with a melt-quenched glassy structure connected by interfacial regions, the structure of which is characterized (in comparison to the corresponding melt-quenched glass) by (1) a reduced (up to about 10%) density, (2) a reduced (up to about 20%) number of nearest-neighbor atoms and (3) a different electronic structure. Due to their new kind of atomic and electronic structure, the properties of nanoglasses may be modified by (1) controlling the size of the glassy regions (i.e., the volume fraction of the interfacial regions) and/or (2) by varying their chemical composition. Nanoglasses exhibit new properties, e.g., a Fe90Sc10 nanoglass is (at 300 K) a strong ferromagnet whereas the corresponding melt-quenched glass is paramagnetic. Moreover, nanoglasses were noted to be more ductile, more biocompatible, and catalytically more active than the corresponding melt-quenched glasses. Hence, this new class of noncrystalline materials may open the way to technologies utilizing the new properties.

In situ monitoring magnetism and resistance of nanophase platinum upon electrochemical oxidation

Controlled tuning of material properties by external stimuli represents one of the major topics of current research in the field of functional materials. Electrochemically induced property tuning has recently emerged as a promising pathway in this direction making use of nanophase materials with a high fraction of electrode-electrolyte interfaces. The present letter reports on electrochemical property tuning of porous nanocrystalline Pt. Deeper insight into the underlying processes could be gained by means of a direct comparison of the charge-induced response of two different properties, namely electrical resistance and magnetic moment. For this purpose, four-point resistance measurements and SQUID magnetometry were performed under identical in situ electrochemical control focussing on the regime of electrooxidation. Fully reversible variations of the electrical resistance and the magnetic moment of 6% and 1% were observed upon the formation or dissolution of a subatomic chemisorbed oxygen surface layer, respectively. The increase of the resistance, which is directly correlated to the amount of deposited oxygen, is considered to be primarily caused by charge-carrier scattering processes at the metal-electrolyte interfaces. In comparison, the decrease of the magnetic moment upon positive charging appears to be governed by the electric field at the nanocrystallite-electrolyte interfaces due to spin-orbit coupling.

Inkjet printed, high mobility inorganic-oxide field effect transistors processed at room temperature

Printed electronics (PE) represents any electronic devices, components or circuits that can be processed using modern-day printing techniques. Field-effect transistors (FETs) and logics are being printed with intended applications requiring simple circuitry on large, flexible (e.g., polymer) substrates for low-cost and disposable electronics. Although organic materials have commonly been chosen for their easy printability and low temperature processability, high quality inorganic oxide-semiconductors are also being considered recently. The intrinsic mobility of the inorganic semiconductors are always by far superior than the organic ones; however, the commonly expressed reservations against the inorganic-based printed electronics are due to major issues, such as high processing temperatures and their incompatibility with solution-processing. Here we show a possibility to circumvent these difficulties and demonstrate a room-temperature processed and inkjet printed inorganic-oxide FET where the transistor channel is composed of an interconnected nanoparticle network and a solid polymer electrolyte serves as the dielectric. Even an extremely conservative estimation of the field-effect mobility of such a device yields a value of 0.8 cm(2)/(V s), which is still exceptionally large for a room temperature processed and printed transistor from inorganic materials.