The project objectives include the development and characterization of new technologies for thin film devices and

The project objectives include the development and characterization of new technologies for thin film devices and microsystems in the following areas:

• Development of semiconducting transition metal chalcogenide (such as MoS₂) thin films, with investigation of various deposition methods and crystallization techniques needed for device quality films, evaluation of metal contacts to them and development of metal oxide films needed for device applications.
• Development of thin film transistor (TFT) fabrication processes on various substrates at low temperatures, suitable for display, flexible, wearable or ubiquitous electronics, utilizing these novel semiconductor and dielectric films.
• Fabrication and characterization of various devices and microsystems, such as sensors, transistors and large area electronics, based on deposited metal chalcogenide or advanced laser annealed polycrystalline silicon thin films.

Advanced polysilicon TFTs, on which our research had been focused in the past, are necessary for large area electronics systems, yet they now constitute a mature technology. Limitations in that technology create niches for novel materials such as transition metal chalcogenides, which exhibit strong in-plane covalent bonding and weak inter-planar coupling and are suited for ultrathin film and two-dimensional applications. The most important of them is molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), which we have chosen to pursue for TFTs and thin film sensors, both with depositions at INN and with utilization of high purity ultrathin films deposited by collaborating teams elsewhere; other metal chalcogenide films are also under consideration. We have investigated the material and electrical characteristics of semiconducting MoS₂ and dielectric Ta₂O₅ films deposited for a wide range of conditions and we are fabricating sensors and TFTs in them, continually optimizing the processes