US20010015438A1 - Low temperature thin film transistor fabrication - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention broadens the range of materials and processes that are available for Thin Film Transistor (TFT) devices by providing in the device structure an organic semiconductor layer that is in contact with an inorganic mixed oxide gate insulator involving room temperature processing at up to 150 degrees C.

A TFT of the invention has a pentacene semiconductor layer in contact with a barium zirconate titanate gate oxide layer formed on a polycarbonate transparent substrate employing at least one of the techniques of sputtering, evaporation and laser ablation.

Description

• Cross Reference is made to contemporaneous patent application Ser. No. 08/827,015, Filed Mar. 25, 1997, and 08/827,018 Filed Mar. 25, 1997; assigned to the assignee of this application; arising out of a continuing technological effort and incorporated herein by reference.[0001]
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
• This invention pertains to thin film field effect transistors (TFT), and in particular to the structure and processing of such TFT devices at a low, of the order of 150 degrees C., or less temperature.[0002]
BACKGROUND AND RELATION TO THE PRIOR ART
• Thin film field effect transistors (TFT), useful in flat panel display applications, at the current state of the art, involve a semiconductor layer with a channel defined by separated source and drain electrodes on one side and an insulated gate electrode on the other side that is centered with respect to the channel. The structure of the TFT device is usually fabricated through a set of serial deposition operations of carefully controlled layers on a substrate. The desired TFT electrical performance involves low voltage operation with high carrier mobility in the channel, and with current vs voltage output characteristics that include a steep slope followed by a saturation region.[0003]
• The current TFT devices typically use amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) as the semiconductor and silicon oxide and/or silicon nitride as the gate insulator. Some attention in the art is being directed toward the use of semiconducting organic compounds as potential replacements for amorphous silicon as the semiconductor.[0004]
• As the art is progressing, in addition to the ever increasing stringency of requirements for increases in density and responsiveness of the components, it is also becoming desirable that transparent substrates have mechanical flexibility, impact resistance and light weight. Meeting all the constraints is becoming more difficult to achieve. Many materials and processing techniques used in the fabrication of active matrix liquid displays (AMLCD), that are based on a-Si:H TFT devices involve temperatures above 350 degrees C. which operates to eliminate many otherwise useful substrate materials. A need is growing in the art for a broader range of materials and processes for TFT devices, particularly under the rigorous criteria in the display type of application. Transparent plastic substrates for AMLCD are very desirable but cannot withstand temperatures above 150-200 degrees C.[0005]
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
• The invention broadens the range of materials and processes available for TFT devices by providing in the device structure an organic semiconductor layer that is in contact with an inorganic mixed oxide gate insulator involving processing with the types of processing techniques that can take place in a temperature range from about room temperature to about 150 degrees C.[0006]
• A TFT of the invention has a pentacene semiconductor layer in contact with a barium zirconate titanate gate insulator layer formed on a polycarbonate transparent substrate employing at least one of the techniques of sputtering, spinning, evaporation and laser ablation[0007]
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
• FIG. 1 is a depiction of typical elements in a prior art type TFT device.[0008]
• FIGS.[0009]2 to5 are depictions of the partial products at intermediate steps in the fabrication of a TFT in accordance with the present invention.
• FIG. 6 is a depiction of all the elements in a TFT in accordance with the present invention.[0010]
• FIG. 7 is a sketch of a room temperature sputter deposition processing apparatus.[0011]
• FIGS. 8 through 16 are data plots of the examples of the present invention wherein:[0012]
• FIGS. 8, 9 and[0013]10 show the operating characteristics of one example of a TFT device of the present invention.
• FIG. 8 shows data on the organic semiconductor pentacene as the semiconductor and a 122 nm thick layer of barium zirconate titanate (BZT), deposited by room temperature sputtering, as the gate insulator; illustrating the dependence of the drain current on the gate voltage at a fixed source-drain voltage.[0014]
• FIG. 9 is a plot of the data from FIG. 8 in a semi logarithmic scale used to calculate the current modulation and subthreshold slope.[0015]
• FIG. 10 is a replot of the data from FIG. 9 as the square root of the drain current plotted versus the gate voltage in the saturation regime in order to calculate the field effect mobility.[0016]
• FIGS.[0017]11,-15 show operating characteristic data of a second example of a TFT device of the invention using the organic semiconductor pentacene as the semiconductor and a 122 mm thick layer of barium zirconate titanate deposited by room temperature sputtering, as the gate insulator.
• FIG. 11 shows the dependence of the drain current on the gate voltage at a fixed source-drain voltage.[0018]
• FIG. 12 is the plot of the data from FIG. 11 in a semi logarithmic scale used to calculate the current modulation and sub-threshold slope.[0019]
• FIG. 13 is a plot of the data from FIG. 12 as the square root of the drain current as a function of the gate voltage in the saturation regime in order to calculate the field effect mobility.[0020]
• FIG. 14 shows the dependence of the drain current on the source drain voltage at different gate voltage levels, and,[0021]
• FIG. 15 is a plot of the drain current as a function of the gate voltage in the linear regime at a fixed drain voltage for calculation of the mobility in the linear regime of TFT operation.[0022]
• FIG. 16 shows the dependence of the drain current on the source-drain voltage at different gate voltage levels, from a third example TFT device fabricated on a transparent polycarbonate substrate using pentacene as semiconductor and a 128 mm thick layer of barium zirconate titanate (BZT) deposited by room temperature sputtering as the gate insulator.[0023]
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
• Referring to FIG. 1, which is illustrative of the present state of the art, the TFT device is supported by an[0024]insulating substrate1 with the device having asemiconductor region2 with fieldeffect transistor channel3 defining, separated,source4 and drain5 on one side of thesemiconductor region2, and agate6 electrode separated by insulation7 from thechannel3 and centered with respect to thechannel3 on the other side of thesemiconductor region2. The desired electrical performance of the device places stringent material and dimensional requirements on the layers and on the processing parameters in building the device. Many of the present devices use amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) as thesemiconductor2, and conventional dielectric materials such as SiO, SiO₂, or Si₃N₄, as the gate insulator7. Thesubstrate1 is usually glass. The materials used and the processing that must be employed therewith, during fabrication of these devices result in temperature excursions in the several hundreds of degrees C. being required.
• As the art is developing, in addition to increased limitations driven by higher performance, it is becoming desirable to impart the physical properties of mechanical flexibility, impact resistance, and lighter weight into the device, which in turn may affect the selection of the materials, the dimensions and the processing of the[0025]semiconductor2, the gate insulator7 and thesubstrate1.
• In accordance with the invention it has been found that with the combined use of an organic semiconductor together with an inorganic oxide gate insulator[0026]7 which is processed with room temperature vicinity type processes which are in the temperature range of about 25 to about 150 degrees C. and which has dielectric consent values of 15 and above, devices with acceptable TFT carrier mobility in thechannel3 can be produced, and further the room temperature vicinity type processes also permit broadening the range of available materials forsubstrate1 to include thin and transparent plastics such as polycarbonate films. The room temperature vicinity type processes may be considered to be those in which in the deposition and in any subsequent annealing type step the temperature is up to about 150 degrees C.; which temperature range is far below the 300-400 degree C. range presently used in the art. Such processes would include for examples sputtering, spinning, evaporation and laser ablation.
• In FIGS.[0027]2-6 the partial product depictions illustrate in FIGS.2-5 result in the novel TFT depicted in FIG. 6.
• Referring to FIG. 2 the TFT device is built on a[0028]substrate10 which provides support for fabrication of the device onsurface11 and serves as a portion of the completed device. During fabrication the substrate is held in the vicinity of room temperature (25 degrees C.) Silicon oxide, quartz and glass are satisfactory substrate and supporting materials; further, through the capabilities conferred by the invention the choices for a substrate material is broadened to include plastics such as polycarbonates which provide additional properties of impact resistance, lightness of weight and flexibility.
• Referring to FIG. 3 the first, of the gate and the source drain electrodes, the[0029]gate electrode12, is positioned on thesurface11. Theelectrode12 is about 0.1 micrometers in thickness. Satisfactory materials are metals such as gold, silver, palladium, aluminum, copper and platinum and conducting polymers such as polyaniline and polypyrrole. The resistance of the electrodes and connecting members should be selected so that the signal deterioration due to resistance is minimized,
• Referring to FIG. 4, in accordance with the invention the gate[0030]dielectric member13 is of an inorganic oxide that is deposited on thesurface11 over thegate electrode12. The deposition is accomplished with one of the low temperature techniques of sputtering, spinning, evaporation and ablation, at a room temperature vicinity temperature range of about 25-150 degrees C. Suitable inorganic oxides at the present state of the art may include Ta₂O₃, V₂O_3,TiO₂, and the ferroelectric insulators Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂, BaMgF₄, SrTiO₃, which within the class include the mixed oxides SrBi₂Ta_(1-x)Nb_xO₃, PbZr_xTi_)1-x)O₃, known in the art as (PZT), BaZr_xTi_(1-x)O₃, known in the art as (BZT), and Ba_xSr_(1-x)TiO₃, known in the art as (BST). Of the mixed oxide example materials, the BZT material has received some background attention in the publication by Wu et al., in Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 1996, pages 2659-2661. The gate dielectric13 is deposited to a thickness in theregion14 above thegate electrode12 in the range of 0.5 micrometer. In accordance with the invention the room temperature vicinity of up to about 150 degrees C. deposition of inorganic gate oxide materials provides a device gate insulator with a dielectric constant in the range of 15 or above which is adequate to provide satisfactory carrier mobility in the being fabricated device channel. Heretofore in the art, much higher dielectric constants around 300 were involved and which required very high temperature annealing steps that were incompatible with some materials. Further, the intended applications of those high dielectric constant devices were not displays but were devices built on silicon substrates.
• Referring to FIG. 5, the[0031]organic semiconductor15 of the TFT device of the invention, is deposited at a room temperature vicinity temperature, over thegate insulation layer13. A satisfactory organic semiconductor material is the material pentacene, which in a TFT device can impart performance in which there is a field effect carrier mobility of about 0.6 cm²V⁻¹sec⁻¹in the channel, and current modulation of up to 10⁸at operating voltage ranges of up to + 100 V. The material pentacene has received some background attention in the art as described in the following publications: Lin et al. IEEE 54th Annual Device Research Conference, 1996, Pages 80-81, Brown et al., J. Appl. Phys. 79, (4), 1996, Pages 2136-2139, and Dimitakopoulos et al., J. Appl. Phys. 80, (4), 1996, Pages 2501-2507. Further, in the cross referenced patent application Ser. Nos. 08/827,015 Filed Mar. 25, 1997 and 08/827,018 Filed Mar. 25, 1997, it has been shown how the above described performance can be achieved at much lower operating voltages (5 to 10 V) using an inorganic gate dielectric with a dielectric constant of greater than 15. Referring to FIG. 6, the TFT of the invention is depicted. Thesource16 and drain17 with thechannel defining separation18 centered over thegate12 are deposited in registration with thegate12 on the exposed surface of theorganic semiconductor member15 using a low temperature deposition process at a room temperature vicinity temperature. The layers deposited and operated in the 25 to 150 degrees C. vicinity of room temperature are well matched to the moderate dielectric needs of the organic; semiconductors and enable processing and service with much lower temperature tolerant substrates, such as plastic.
• In the process described in connection with FIGS.[0032]2-6 it will be apparent that protective coatings can be placed over the exposed surfaces and annealing of layers can be employed where desired so long as within the room temperature vicinity temperature range.
• An illustration of the room temperature type deposition technique involving sputtering is provided in connection with the apparatus depicted in FIG. 7. Referring to FIG. 7 there is shown a schematic of a[0033]sputter deposition apparatus20 that can be used to deposit thelayer13 of the invention using as a specific example the inorganic mixed oxide material Barium-Zirconate-Titanate (BZT). It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the apparatus of FIG. 7 is but one example of useable systems that can be varied in size and throughput. Theapparatus20 includes a sputtering chamber21, having athrottle valve22 which separates the reactor chamber21 from a vacuum pump not shown. A pressed powderBZT sputtering target23 such as is manufactured by PURE TECH, in Carmel N.Y., is mounted in the reactor chamber21.Permanent magnets24 are located on the backside of thetarget23 to enhance plasma density during the sputtering. Thesputtering target23 is electrically isolated from thehousing29 and electrically connected to aRF power supply25 trough animpedance matching device26. One ormore substrates27 such as silicon wafers, glass plates or polycarbonate sheets, are mounted on asample holder28 which is isolated from thereactor chamber housing29 by adielectric spacer30. Thehousing29 is maintained at a selected temperature such as room temperature. Thesample holder28 can be RF biased for plasma cleaning using aRF power supply31 connected through animpedance matching device32. Thesubstrate holder28 is also provided with rotation capability at33. Thesubstrates27 haveplanetary rotation capability34 to assure uniformity across the substrate being coated. The films deposited at room temperature are well matched to the moderate dielectric needs of the organic semiconductor TFT's and enable broadening the range of useable substrates to include processing on plastic substrates.
• Continuing to refer to FIG. 7, The[0034]reactor chamber20 also containsconduits34 and35 for introducing various gases. For example, argon could be introduced throughconduit34 and oxygen throughconduit35.
• Gases employed in the following examples of the invention should have a purity greater than about 95.5%; with a purity in the range from about 98.5 to about 99.99% being preferred.[0035]
• In FIG. 7, the argon and oxygen gases are introduced into the chamber by first passing them through separate flow controllers at a sufficient flow to provide a total pressure of Ar and oxygen from about 1 mTorr to 50 mTorr. The Ar and oxygen flows are from about 100 to 1 sccm, more preferably the Ar flow is about 10 sccm and the oxygen flow about 2 sccm. To provide the most effective deposited layer such as a BZT film, it is preferred that the pressure of argon and oxygen be about 2-3 mTorr. Such conditions can also be obtained by premixing the Ar and oxygen in one gas cylinder providing the desired gas concentration. Preferably the argon and oxygen gases are introduced as illustrated into the chamber through two separate flow controllers in[0036]conduits34 and35.
• Suitable substrates which may be coated with the room temperature vicinity deposited layers or films of the invention include materials such as plastic; metals; various types of glass; quartz; silicon wafers and the likes thereof. A substrate to be coated may be any shape or size compatible with being placed into a sputtering chamber apparatus. Thus, regular of irregular shape objects having any dimension may be used and depending on the design of the sputtering system with modifications to the vacuum chamber, coatings can be applied to sheet materials fed in a roll to roll format. In operation, the substrate is mounted on the substrate holder inside the reactive sputtering chamber of the sputter system The reactive sputtering chamber is then tightly sealed and evacuated until a pressure reading in the range of about 1×10[0037]⁻⁴to about 1×10⁻⁷Torr is obtained. Most preferably, the substrate is held at a constant, room temperature value of about 25 degrees C. throughout the entire deposition process. Where desired the substrate material used may be subjected to in-situ plasma cleaning; using for example H₂, Ar, O₂, or N₂type plasma sputter etching techniques.
• After achieving the desired pump down pressure, the admixed gases are introduced into the reaction sputter chamber at example flow rates of about 1 to 100 standard cubic centimeters per minute (sccm); with the flow rate of the Ar gas being at about 10 sccm and oxygen being at about 2 sccm. The gases in this example would be introduced into the reaction chamber at a pressure of about 1 to 20 mTorr; with an admixture pressure of about 3 mTorr. being preferred.[0038]
• In order to obtain a reactive sputtering plasma of the gas mixture, an rf power density from about 0.05 to 4 W/cm[0039]²would be applied to theexample BZT target23 throughout the deposition process. Most preferably, the rf power would be maintained at 0.8 W/cm²throughout the deposition process through the RF power supplysource involving elements25 and26. The BZT film is deposited onto the substrate at a rate of about 10 Angstroms/min., such that an essentially continuous coating of the film on the substrate is obtained. These conditions permit film depositions in thicknesses in a range of about 100 to 5000 Angstroms with about 1250 being preferred.
• In the following paragraphs examples 1, 2 and 3 are provided that illustrate the deposition and the construction of the invention. Although a sputter deposition process is used as an example in connection with FIG. 7, the other room temperature vicinity type processes can be used.[0040]
EXAMPLE 1
• Substrates such as silicon wafers with a blanket coating of 150 Å titanium followed by 400 Å of platinum can be loaded into a BZT sputter deposition chamber as described in connection with FIG. 7. The chamber is pumped down to a base pressure of 2.1×10[0041]⁻⁷torr after which a flow of 10 standard cubic centemeters per minute (sccm) of argon and 2 sccm of oxygen gas are introduced into the chamber throughelements34 and35. By appropriate valving of the chamber, a total pressure of 2 mtorr is achieved. After purging this gas for 5 minutes, a plasma is ignited in the chamber by applying a radio frequency ac voltage throughelements25 and26 to theBZT sputter target23 while maintaining the chamber at ground potential. The ions in the rf plasma thus created is used to reactively sputter the BZT from the target on to thesamples27 loaded in the chamber. A total power of 100 watts which corresponds to a power density of about 0.8 watts/cm²is employed to achieve a BZT thickness of about 1250 Å.
• The wafers are unloaded at the end of the run and provided with an array of top electrode dots considering of a bilayer of 5000 Å al/600 Å Au deposited by electron beam evaporation through a metal mask in a different vacuum system. These parts are used to measure the dielectric constant and breakdown characteristics of the BZT film. The dielectric constant is 17.3 and the breakdown field about 1 MV/cm for BZT films of 1250 Å thickness.[0042]
• Using the methodology described above, the deposited BZT films at room temperature thus range in thickness from 1000 to 2000 Å with a dielectric constant in the range of 15 to 20 which can sustain fields of about 1 MV/cm without breakdown.[0043]
EXAMPLE 2
• TFT's having as gate insulator a thin film of barium zirconate titanate (BZT), are fabricated by means of room temperature vicinity type rf sputtering as described in Example 1 together with the TFT fabrication steps described in connection with FIGS.[0044]2-6. In this particular example, oxidized silicon substrates are cleaned in an isopropanol bath using ultrasonic agitation and dried with nitrogen. They are then assembled with a metal mask with openings corresponding to the gate lines and placed and pumped down to high vacuum in an electron beam evaporator. Gate metallization of either 400 Å of aluminum or a bilayer of 150 Å of titanium followed by 300 Å of platinum is deposited on the substrates by electron beam evaporation. Then agate insulator film13 of BZT is deposited on top of thegate12 and thesubstrate surface11, as described in example 1.
• An organic[0045]semiconductor pentacene layer15 is deposited on theBZT gate insulator13 using thermal evaporation in a vacuum chamber through a mask that separates individual devices from each other and reduces fringe currents which are currents that pass through the pentacene layer that is deposited outside the area of the devices. Satisfactory results are achieved with both the ultra high and the high vacuum chambers. The samples may then be assembled with a mask provided with openings for source and drain contact electrodes, placed and pumped down in an electron beam evaporator and coated with 600 Å of gold to produce thesource16 and drain17 contacts. The resulting TFT structure is shown schematically in FIG. 6. Alternatively, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that thesource16 and drain17 contacts can be placed on top of theinsulator13 and then thepentacene layer15 placed over them.
• There are many aspects of manufacturing flexibility in room temperature vicinity deposition techniques. For one example, in depositing, the[0046]pentacene film15 could be deposited using a soluble precursor of pentacene which is converted to pentacene by heating up to 140° C. in vacuo as described in the publication by A. R. Brown et al. in theJ. App. Phys.,Volume 79, pg. 2136, 1996. Similarly, in materials, there is a wide range of electrode materials such as molybdenum, tungsten, nickel, platinum, palladium, conducting polymers, oligomers and organic molecules.
• Completed TFT samples are then tested electrically using a Hewlett Packard Model 4145B semiconductor parameter analyzer to determine the operating characteristics described in connection with FIGS.[0047]8 to16.
• Referring to FIGS. 8, 9 and[0048]10, which are typical operating characteristics of a pentacene organic semiconductor TFT, with an inorganic mixed oxide gate dielectric of BZT as represented by the schematic drawing in FIG. 6, in which the thickness of the BZT gate-insulator is approximately 1220 Å and its dielectric constant, is 17.3. The BZT is deposited by sputter deposition as described in connection with FIG. 7. The source drain separation (channel length, L) is 18.4 μm and the channel width, W, is 1500 μm. FIGS. 8 and 9 show the dependence of Drain Current (I_D) on Gate Voltage (V_G) in saturation. FIG. 10 shows a plot of the square root of I_Dvs V_G. The field effect mobility, μ, is calculated from the slope of the plot to be 0.32 cm²V⁻¹sec⁻¹. The current modulation is about 10⁵for a gate voltage variation of 19 volts (+5 to −14 V). The sub-threshold slope, is approximately 2 volts per decade of current modulation.
• Referring to FIGS. 11, 12 and[0049]13 which are depictions of data measured and plotted similarly to FIGS. 8 and 10 from another TFT device fabricated by the procedure described in connection with FIGS.2-7; except that the channel length L is 11.2 μm and the width was 1500 μm. Calculated values of the various characteristic parameters are very close to the ones described in connection with FIGS.8-10.
• Referring to FIGS. 14 and 15 which are characteristics from another TFT device with a BZT gate insulator that is 1280 Å thick and which has a channel length of 125 μm and a channel width of 500 μm. FIG. 14 shows the measured drain current (I[0050]_D) vs the drain voltage (V_D) at gate voltage levels showing the expected TFT behavior. FIG. 15 shows the I_Dversus V_Gplot for this device in the linear regime rather than in the saturation regime as shown in FIGS.8-10 and11-13. The mobility calculated from this linear regime is 0.27 cm²V⁻¹sec⁻¹. All of these different characteristics are considered to be adequate for the use of such TFT's in display applications.
• As an example of the broadening of the available substrates an Example 3 is provided that illustrates the invention with plastic substrates.[0051]
EXAMPLE 3
• TFT devices are fabricated on transparent polycarbonate substrates that are 0.020″ thick which is about 0.5 mm using a sputtered BZT gate insulator that is about 1280 Å in thickness deposited by the sputtering process as described in connection with FIG. 7 and using the steps described in connection with FIGS.[0052]2-6 for depositing the other layers.
• Measurements of TFT characteristics were performed as described in Example 2. Referring to FIG. 16 which shows the drain current versus drain voltage plot for a TFT device on this type of substrate with a channel length of 69 μm and channel width of 1500 μm. The mobility for this device was calculated to be 0.14 cm[0053]²V⁻¹sec⁻¹while μ=0.20 cm²V⁻¹sec⁻¹in the saturation regime. Mobility values as high as 0.38 cm²V⁻¹sec⁻¹were measured from devices with a W/L ratio of 4. These are the highest reported mobilities from devices fabricated on plastic substrates, and they are obtained at a maximum gate voltage of 4 V and hence are well suited for display applications.
• Earlier attempts to fabricate organic semiconductor transistors on plastic substrates as reported in the publication by Guarnier et al. in Science, Vol. 265, 1684,(1994) have produced lower performance than the present invention. The mobilities reported in the Guarnier et al. publication are more than three times lower than the mobilities in the present invention. With this invention a low operating voltage and high mobility pentacene based TFT with an inorganic mixed oxide gate insulator can be fabricated with room temperature vicinity processes so as to enable fabrication on transparent plastic substrates.[0054]
• What has been described here is the broadening of the range of materials and processes that are available for TFT devices by providing in the device structure an organic semiconductor layer that is in contact with an inorganic mixed oxide gate insulator wherein the processing is with the types of techniques that can take place in a room temperature vicinity range.[0055]

Claims (23)

What is claimed is:

1. In a process of fabricating a low temperature thin film transistor by serial deposition, of at least, a semiconductor layer in contact with a gate insulation layer, on a substrate, the improvement comprising, in combination, the steps of:

providing an organic semiconductor material as the material for said semiconductor layer,

providing an inorganic oxide material as the material for said gate material,

depositing one, of said semiconductor layer and said gate insulation layer, on the other, by a process taken from the group of sputtering, spinning, evaporation and laser ablation, at a substrate temperature in the range of about 25 to 150 degrees C.

2. The process of

claim 1

including the step of:

providing, as said substrate, a plastic material.

3. The process of

claim 2

including in said serial deposition of layers the steps of depositing a gate electrode on said substrate and the step of depositing in connection with said semiconductor layer, source and drain electrodes.

4. The process of

claim 3

wherein said source and drain electrodes are deposited before said semiconductor layer.

5. The process of

claim 3

wherein said source and drain electrodes are deposited on said semiconductor layer.

6. The process of

claim 3

wherein said substrate is at least one material taken from the group of polycarbonate, polyethylene terephthalate, silicon, quartz and glass.

7. The process of

claim 6

wherein said electrodes are of at least one material taken from the group of doped silicon, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, molybdenum, platinum and conducting polymers.

8. The process of

claim 7

wherein said gate insulation is at least one inorganic oxide taken from the group of inorganic oxides including Ta₂O₃, V₂O₃, TiO₂, the ferroelectric insulators Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂, BaMgF₄, SrTiO₃, and the mixed oxides SrBi₂Ta_(1-x)Nb_xO₃, PbZr_xTi_(1-x)O₃, BaZr_xTi_(1-x)O₃, and Ba_xSr_(1-x)TiO₃.

9. The process of

claim 8

wherein said organic semiconductor layer is of the material pentacene.

10. The process of fabricating a low temperature in film transistor through serial deposition of layers on a substrate, comprising in combination the steps of:

performing said deposition of layers in a temperature range of about 25 to 150 degrees C., and during said deposition

employing at least one room temperature deposition process taken from the group of sputtering, spinning, evaporation and laser ablation, and serially,

depositing a gate electrode on said substrate,

depositing an inorganic oxide gate insulation layer on said substrate and over said gate electrode, and,

depositing an organic semiconductor layer on said gate insulation layer including a step of depositing source and drain electrodes separated by a channel distance.

11. The process of

claim 10

wherein the step of depositing said source and drain electrodes occurs before said step of depositing said organic semiconducting layer.

12. The process of

claim 10

wherein the step of depositing said source and drain electrodes occurs after said step of depositing said organic semiconducting layer.

13. The process of

claim 10

wherein said room temperature deposition process is sputtering.

14. The process of

claim 13

wherein said organic semiconductor is pentacene.

15. The process of

claim 14

wherein said gate oxide layer is barium zirconate titanate.

16. The process of

claim 15

wherein said gate electrode and said source and drain electrodes are of silicon doped to 0.003 ohm cm.

17. The process of

claim 16

wherein said substrate is a layer of polycarbonate plastic.

18. A thin film transistor device for processing in fabrication and operation in an about 25 to 150 degree C. temperature range comprising:

a substrate on which an electrically conducting gate electrode is positioned,

a layer of inorganic gate insulation positioned on said substrate and over said gate electrode,

a layer of an organic semiconductor positioned in contact with said layer of gate insulation, and,

source and drain electrodes in contact with said organic semiconductor layer in registration with respect to said gate electrode.

19. The transistor device of

claim 18

where said inorganic gate electrode is barium zirconium titanate with a dielectric constant of at least 15.

20. The transistor device of

claim 19

wherein said substrate is selected from the group consisting of glass, plastic, and quartz.

21. The transistor device of

claim 20

wherein the material of said gate and said source and drain electrodes is taken from the group of doped silicon, metals and conducting polymers.

22. The transistor device of

claim 21

wherein said layer of inorganic gate insulation is at least one inorganic oxide taken from the group of inorganic oxides including Ta₂O₅, V₂O₃, TiO₂, the ferroelectric insulators Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂, BaMgF₄, SrTiO₃, and, the mixed oxides SrB₁₂Ta_(1-x)Nb_xO₃, PbZr_xTi_(1-x)O₃, BaZr_(1-x)Ti_xO₃, and Ba_xSr_(1-x)Ti O₃.

23. The transistor device of

claim 22

wherein said layer of organic semiconductor is the material pentacene.

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