Stochastic nature of large‐scale contact printed ZnO nanowires based transistors

Printing technology holds great potential for resource-efficient development of electronic devices and circuits. However, even after decades of research, achieving uniformly responding nanowires (NWs) based printed devices is still a challenge. To date, there is no design rule that clearly guides the fabrication of NW ensemble-based field-effect transistors (FETs) and the variables that influence device-level uniformity remain unclear. The lack of fundamental understanding severely limits the large-scale and very large-scale integration (LSI and VLSI). Herein this longstanding issue is addressed with a holistic approach that starts with optimization of the synthesis of ZnO NWs, their printing, and further processing to fabricate transistors with uniform responses (e.g., on-state current, threshold voltage). Monte Carlo simulation based on statistical analysis of printed ZnO NWs is carried out to develop a probabilistic framework that can predict the large-scale performance of FETs. As a proof of concept, inverter circuits have been developed using printed ZnO NWs based FETs. This work provides a valuable toolkit to handle the stochastic nature of FETs based on printed ZnO NW ensemble, which can be used for neuromorphic integrated circuit in the future.