title: Metal oxides for optoelectronic applications.
abstract: Metal oxides (MOs) are the most abundant materials in the Earth's crust and are ingredients in traditional ceramics. MO semiconductors are strikingly different from conventional inorganic semiconductors such as silicon and III-V compounds with respect to materials design concepts, electronic structure, charge transport mechanisms, defect states, thin-film processing and optoelectronic properties, thereby enabling both conventional and completely new functions. Recently, remarkable advances in MO semiconductors for electronics have been achieved, including the discovery and characterization of new transparent conducting oxides, realization of p-type along with traditional n-type MO semiconductors for transistors, p-n junctions and complementary circuits, formulations for printing MO electronics and, most importantly, commercialization of amorphous oxide semiconductors for flat panel displays. This Review surveys the uniqueness and universality of MOs versus other unconventional electronic materials in terms of materials chemistry and physics, electronic characteristics, thin-film fabrication strategies and selected applications in thin-film transistors, solar cells, diodes and memories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.|State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, School of Opto-electronic Information, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Xinge
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Tobin J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Marks
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.|Polyera Corporation, 8045 Lamon Avenue, Skokie, Illinois 60077, USA.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Facchetti