Kuang-Yu Wang

Effects of crystallization mechanism on the electrical characteristics of green continuous-wave-laser-crystallized polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors

Thin film transistors (TFTs) with amorphous silicon films crystallized via continuous-wave green laser at a wavelength of 532 nm exhibit very different electrical characteristics in various crystallization regions, corresponding to the Gaussian energy density distribution of the laser beam. In the center region subjected to the highest energy density, the full melting scheme led to the best crystallinity of the polycrystalline silicon film, resulting in the highest field-effect mobility of 500 cm2 V−1 s−1. In contrast, the edge region that resulted in solid phase crystallization exhibited the worst mobility of 48 cm2 V−1 s−1 for the polycrystalline silicon TFTs.

Effect of oxygen plasma treatment on horizontally aligned carbon nanotube thin film as pH-sensing membrane of extended-gate field-effect transistor

The high-performance pH-sensing membrane of extended-gate field-effect transistors (EGFET) composed of high-conductivity horizontally aligned carbon nanotube thin films (HACNTFs) after oxygen plasma treatment is successfully demonstrated. The 10-µm-wide catalytic metal lines with 60 µm interspace produced CNT vertical plates, and the plates were mechanically pulled down and densified to form HACNTFs. A large amount of oxygen-containing functional groups are decorated on the CNTs after the oxygen plasma treatment. These functional groups act as the sensing sites and respond to the H+ or OH− ions in solutions with different pH values. Therefore, these functionalized HACNTFs as pH-EGFET-sensing membranes can achieve a high voltage sensitivity of 40 mV/pH and high current sensitivity of 0.78 µA1/2/pH. Moreover, large linearity of 0.998 is measured in a wide sensing range from pH 1 to 13. These results reveal that the oxygen plasma treatment is an effective way to improve the CNT-sensing characteristics in pH-EGFET sensors.

Functionalized Carbon Nanotube Thin Films as the pH Sensing Membranes of Extended-Gate Field-Effect Transistors on the Flexible Substrates

The oxygen-plasma-functionalized carbon nanotube thin films on the flexible substrates as the pH sensing membranes of extended-gate field-effect transistors are proposed for the first time. The carbon nanotubes are ultrasonically sprayed onto the polyimide substrates followed by an oxygen-plasma functionalization. Such oxygen-plasma-treated carbon nanotube thin films (CNTFs) exhibit superior pH sensing characteristics with the sensitivity of 55.7 mV/pH and voltage linearity of 0.9996 in a wide sensing range of pH 1-13. Moreover, the excellent flexibility of carbon nanotube is also demonstrated and the oxygen-plasma-treated CNTFs still maintain the sensitivity of 53.6 mV/pH and voltage linearity of 0.9943 even after five-cycle bending test. These results reveal that the oxygen-plasma-treated CNTFs have great potentials in the practically disposal and wearable biosensor applications.

Oxygen Plasma Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Thin Film as A pH Sensing Membrane of Extended-Gate Field-Effect Transistor

High-performance pH sening membranes of extended-gate field-effect transistors (EGFETs) composed only of oxygen-plasma-functionalized carbon nanotube thin films (CNTFs) are demonstrated. A large number of oxygen-containing functional groups are decorated on the sidewalls of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) after the oxygen plasma treatment. These functional groups act as the sensing sites and accurately respond to the ions of interest in different pH levels. Therefore, these functionalized CNTFs as the pH-EGFET sensing membranes can achieve a high voltage sensitivity of 56.8 mV/pH, a large voltage linearity of 0.9995, and a wide sensing range of pH 1-13. In addition, the oxygen-plasma-functionalized CNTFs also exhibit superior reliability with a small hysteresis voltage of 4.98 mV.

Densification effects of the carbon nanotube pillar array on field-emission properties

In this study, a simple densification method for carbon nanotube (CNT) pillars is proposed to achieve high-performance field emission characteristics and stable emission. Through capillary force during solution evaporation, the CNT density in each pillar can be increased by about six times without causing damage to the crystallinity of CNTs. The densified CNT pillars exhibit lower series resistance, sharper pillars, better contacts, higher thermal conductivity, and better mechanical stiffness than as-grown ones. Therefore, the threshold field of the field emitter with such CNT pillars of 50 µm height can be reduced to 1.98 V/µm, as compared with 2.2 V/µm for the undensified ones. Moreover, the fluctuation of field-emission current decreases from 15.5 to 9.4% after the stress tests at a field of 2 V/µm for 1800 s. These findings imply that the densified CNT pillars are promising for the field-emission applications.

Annealing effect on the photoluminescence characteristics of ZnO-nanowires and the improved optoelectronic characteristics of p-NiO/n-ZnO nanowire UV detectors

Transparent ultraviolet (UV) detectors with nanoheterojunctions (NHJs) of p-type NiO and n-type ZnO nanowires (ZnO-NWs) were successfully fabricated using a DC sputtering system and a hydrothermal process, respectively. After annealing in nitrogen ambient, the near-band-edge emission to deep level emission ratio (NBE/DLE) of ZnO-NWs gradually increased as the temperature increased and reached a maximum of 28.9 at a temperature setting of 500 °C. In contrast, after annealing in oxygen atmosphere, the NBE/DLE of ZnO-NWs initially increased from 1.2 to 5.9 and then decreased to 3.2. At a reverse bias of 2 V, the devices with the 500-°C-N2-annealed ZnO-NWs exhibited better sensitivity (JUV/JDark = 5.65; JVisible/JDark = 1.35) to UV light (365 nm, 0.3 mW/cm2) than those with the as-grown ZnO-NWs (JUV/JDark = 4.98; JVisible/JDark = 3.82) because the structural defects in ZnO-NWs were effectively eliminated after annealing in nitrogen ambient at 500 °C.

The mechanism of the surface morphology transformation for the carbon nanotube thin film irradiated via excimer laser

In this paper, the surface morphology transformation of the sprayed carbon nanotube (CNT) thin film irradiated with the excimer laser has been systematically investigated. Under the excimer-laser irradiation, two phenomena, including the annealing and ablation effects, were found to be dependent on the incident laser energy and overlapping ratios. Moreover, the extremely high protrusions would be produced in the interface between the annealing and ablation regions. The mechanism of the CNT thin film under the excimer laser irradiation was, therefore, proposed to derive the surface morphology modifications and the further reinforced crystallinity with proper laser energy densities and overlapping ratios.

Novel junctionless silicon?oxide?nitride?oxide?silicon memory devices with field-enhanced poly-Si nanowire structure

In this work, a novel gate-all-around (GAA) low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS) junctionless (JL) silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon (SONOS) nonvolatile memory device with a field-enhanced nanowire (NW) structure has been proposed to improve the programing/erasing (P/E) performance. Each nanowire has three sharp corners fabricated by a sidewall spacer formation technique to obtain high local electrical fields. Owing to the higher carrier concentration in the channel and the high local electrical field from the three sharp corners, such a JL SONOS memory device exhibits a significantly enhanced P/E speed, a larger memory window, and better data retention properties than a conventional inversion mode NW-channel memory device.

Highly Sensitive pH Sensors of Extended-Gate Field-Effect Transistor With the Oxygen-Functionalized Reduced Graphene Oxide Films on Reverse Pyramid Substrates

The oxygen-plasma-treated reduced graphene oxide films (OPT-RGOFs) as the pH sensing membranes for the extended-gate field-effect transistors were demonstrated to achieve the higher pH sensitivity of 52 mV/pH and better linearity of 0.996 in a wide sensing range of pH 1-13 than those without plasma treatment. It was attributed to the oxygen-containing functional groups on the RGOF induced from the plasma treatment. In addition, the OPT-RGOFs sprayed on the reverse pyramid substrates were also proposed to further enhance the sensing sites, leading to a superior pH sensitivity of 57 mV/pH with an excellent linearity of 0.996.

High-Performance Single-Crystal-Like Strained-Silicon Nanowire Thin-Film Transistors via Continuous-Wave Laser Crystallization

High-performance polycrystalline-silicon nanowire (NW) thin-film transistors (TFTs) have been demonstrated via continuous-wave laser crystallization (CLC) to exhibit the low subthreshold swing of 216 mV/decade and high ON/OFF ratio of 1.6×10⁹. In addition, the thermal stress of ~800 MPa induced from the CLC process also contributed to the single-crystal-like silicon NW CLC TFTs to achieve an excellent field-effect mobility of up to 900 cm²V^-1s^-1.