Metallic, Linear, and Saturated Output Characteristics of Oxide Nanowire Transistors

Ideal nanowire transistors exhibit saturation and square-law behavior in their output characteristics. The current saturation above the pinch-off voltage is an essential characteristic for transistors to be applied to a display device that is required to produce a consistent level of brightness even during long operation periods. However, fabricated oxide nanowire transistors exhibit three representative output characteristics-metallic, linearly increasing, and saturated curves-within a measurable range. In this study, through experiments and simulations using In
₂
O
₃
nanowire transistors, we show that fewer oxygen vacancies in the nanowire produce output characteristics more similar to ideal MOSFET characteristics. This result indicates that differences in electrical characteristics of the nanowire transistor are derived from the difference in the number of oxygen vacancies in the oxide nanowire.