There are several benefits of the information that is invisible to the human eye. “Invisible” here means that it can be visualized or quantified when using instruments. For example, it can improve security without compromising product design. We have succeeded in making an invisible digital image on a metal substrate using periodic repeatability by thin-film interference of niobium oxides. Although this digital information is invisible in the visible light wavelength range of 400-800nm, but detectable in the infrared light that of 800-1150nm. This technology has a potential to be applied to anti-counterfeiting and traceability.

Machine learning, especially deep learning, is dramatically changing the methods associated with optical thin-film inverse design. The vast majority of this research has focused on the parameter optimization (layer thickness, and structure size) of optical thin-films. A challenging problem that arises is an automated material search. In this work, we propose a new end-to-end algorithm for optical thin-film inverse design. This method combines the ability of unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and includes a genetic algorithm to design an optical thin-film without any human intervention. Furthermore, with several concrete examples, we have shown how one can use this technique to optimize the spectra of a multi-layer solar absorber device.

We have designed gate arrays using low-temperature poly-Si thin-film transistors and confirmed the correct operations. Various kinds of logic gates are beforehand prepared, contact holes are later bored, and mutual wiring is formed between the logic gates on demand. A half adder, two-bit decoder, and flip flop are composed as examples. The static behaviors are evaluated, and it is confirmed that the correct waveforms are output. The dynamic behaviors are also evaluated, and it is concluded that the dynamic behaviors of the gate array are less deteriorated than that of the independent circuit.

In order to further optimize the power consumption of Pseudo-CMOS inverter, this paper proposes a Re-Pull-Down transistor scheme. Two additional transistors are used to build another pull-down network. With this design, the quiescent current of the inverter can be reduced while the ratioless nature is preserved. Based on the reduced input gate area, two output transistors are set wider to compensate for the pull-up speed. The simulation result shows that, compared with Pseudo-CMOS inverter, the maximum quiescent current of the Re-Pull-Down transistor scheme inverter is reduced by 37.6% in the static analysis. Besides, the average power consumption is reduced by 30.8% in the 5-stage ring oscillator test.

In this paper, we report the design of an organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) driver circuit for the actuator of an organic fluid pump, which can be integrated in a portable-size fully-organic artificial lung. Compared to traditional pump designs, lightness, compactness and scalability are achieved by adopting a creative pumping mechanism with a completely organic-material-based system concept. The transportable fluid volume is verified to be flexibly adjustable, enabling on-demand controllability and scalability of the pump's fluid-flow rate. The simulations, based on an accurate surface-potential OTFT compact model, demonstrate that the necessary driving waveforms can be efficiently generated and adjusted to the actuator requirements. At the actuator-driving-circuit frequency of 0.98Hz, an all-organic fluid pump with 40cm length and 0.2cm height is able to achieve a flow rate of 0.847L/min, which satisfies the requirements for artificial-lung assist systems to a weakened normal lung.

We have developed a capacitance sensor of frequency modulation for integrated touchpanels using amorphous In-Sn-Zn-O (α-ITZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). This capacitance sensor consists of a ring oscillator, whose one stage is replaced by a reset transistor, sensing transistor, and sensing electrode. The sensing electrode is prepared as one terminal to form a sensing capacitor when the other terminal is added by a finger. The ring oscillator consists of pseudo CMOS inverters. We confirm that the oscillation frequency changes when the other terminal is added. This result suggests that this capacitance sensor can be applied to integrated touchpanels on flatpanel displays.

We propose a temperature sensor employing a ring oscillator composed of poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs). Particularly in this research, we compare temperature sensors using TFTs with lightly-doped drain structure (LDD TFTs) and TFTs with offset drain structure (offset TFTs). First, temperature dependences of transistor characteristics are compared between the LDD and offset TFTs. It is confirmed that the offset TFTs have larger temperature dependence of the on current. Next, temperature dependences of oscillation frequencies are compared between ring oscillators using the LDD and offset TFTs. It is clarified that the ring oscillator using the offset TFTs is suitable to detect the temperature. We think that this kind of temperature sensor is available as a digital device.

We review our recent achievements in monolithic 3D-ICs and flexible electronics based on single-grain Si TFTs that are fabricated inside a single-grain with a low-temperature process. Based on pulsed-laser crystallization and submicron sized cavities made in the substrate, amorphous-Si precursor film was converted into poly-Si having grains that are formed on predetermined positions. Using the method called µ-Czochralski process and LPCVD a-Si precursor film, two layers of the SG Si TFT layers with the grains having a diameter of 6µm were vertically stacked with a maximum process temperature of 550°C. Mobility for electrons and holes were 600cm2/Vs and 200cm2/Vs, respectively. As a demonstration of monolithic 3D-ICs, the two SG-TFT layers were successfully implemented into CMOS inverter, 3D 6T-SRAM and single-grain lateral PIN photo-diode with in-pixel amplifier. The SG Si TFTs were applied to flexible electronics. In this case, the a-Si precursor was prepared by doctor-blade coating of liquid-Si based on pure cyclopentasilane (CPS) on a polyimide (PI) substrate with maximum process temperature of 350°C. The µ-Czochralski process provided location-controlled Si grains with a diameter of 3µm and mobilities of 460 and 121cm2/Vs for electrons and holes, respectively, were obtained. The devices on PI were transferred to a plastic foil which can operate with a bending diameter of 6mm. Those results indicate that the SG TFTs are attractive for their use in both monolithic 3D-ICs and flexible electronics.

The unconditional stable finite-difference time-domain (US-FDTD) method based on Laguerre polynomial expansion and Galerkin temporal testing is used to model thin-film bulk acoustic wave resonators (TFBAR). Numerical results show the efficiency of the US-FDTD algorithm.

We fabricated solution-processed organic complementary inverters based on α,ω-bis(2-hexyldecyl)sexithiophene (BHD6T) for p-channel and C60-fused N-methylpyrrolidine-meta-dodecyl phenyl (C60MC12) for n-channel. The BHD6T and C60MC12 thin-film transistors showed high field-effect mobilities of 0.035 and 0.057 cm2/Vs, respectively. The complementary inverter with a supply voltage of 50 V exhibited inverting voltages of 26.8 V for forward and 27.0 V for backward sweeps and a high gain of 76.

We have studied effects of additive elements into the channel layers of amorphous IGZO TFTs on threshold voltage shift issues under light illumination stress condition. By addition of Hf or Si element, the Vth shift under light illumination and negative bias-temperature stress and illumination stress conditions was drastically suppressed while the switching operation of TFTs using IGZO with Mn or Cu was not observed. It was found that the addition of Si or Hf element into the IGZO channel layer leads to reducing the hole trap sites formed at or near the gate insulator/IGZO channel interface.

Effects of atomic hydrogen annealing (AHA) on the film properties and the electrical characteristics of pentacene organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) are investigated. The surface energy of SiO2 surface and grain size of pentacene film were decreased with increasing AHA treatment time. For the treatment time of 300 s, pentacene film showed the (00l) and (011') orientation and high carrier mobility in spite of small crystal grain.

Hydrogenated polymorphous Silicon allows to fabricate TFTs with very interesting characteristics including better threshold voltage stability than a-Si TFTs, lower leakage current than µc-Si:H TFTs and excellent uniformity. Investigation of threshold voltage shift mechanisms of pm-Si:H TFTs has shown a specific semiconductor material degradation with different activation energies compared to a-Si:H TFTs. TEM analysis has evidenced for the first time a significant structural difference between pm-Si:H and a-Si:H materials, in the TFT device configuration. Pm-Si:H appears to be very suitable for low cost and high performance AM-OLED fabrication.

Two types of thin-film phototransistors (TFPTs), p/i/n TFPT and n/i/n TFPT, are characterized from the viewpoint of operation condition and device behavior. It is found that the detected current can be both independent of the applied voltage (Vapply) and linearly dependent on the photo-illuminance in the saturation region of the p/i/n TFPT. This characteristic is because even if Vapply increases, the depletion layer remains in the whole intrinsic region, and the electric field changes only near the p-type/intrinsic interface and intrinsic/n-type interface but remains in the most intrinsic region. This characteristic is preferable for some kinds of photosensor applications. Finally, an application example of the p/i/n TFPT, artificial retina, is introduced.

We succeeded to fabricate p-n heterojunction and bulkheterojunction small-molecular-weight organic thin-film solar cells by combination of dry (p-type = zinc phthalocyanine, n-type = fullerene) and wet (p-type = tetra-tert-butyl zinc phthalocyanine, n-type = [6,6]-phenyl-C61-buteric acid methyl ester) processes. Relationship between morphologies of semiconducting layers and photovoltaic properties was investigated. The p-n heterojunction organic thin-film solar cells based on dry process, where surface roughness was approximately 2 nm, showed the highest power conversion efficiency of 1.3% in this paper.

CMOS poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated through crystallization and GILD processes by a novel selected area laser assisted (SALA) system. The system enables a local area irradiation of small beams of a pulsed solid-state laser of frequency tripled Nd:YAG. The novel TFT process eliminated 3 doping mask steps of the conventional process. On-off current ratios for both types of poly-Si TFTs were improved by SALA. The field effect mobility of n- and p-channel TFTs is 84 cm2/Vs and 75 cm2/Vs, respectively.

A new technique incorporating combinatorial deposition to develop thin-film phosphors by r.f. magnetron sputtering is demonstrated using subdivided powder targets. In comparison with development using conventional r.f. magnetron sputtering, the atomic ratios of Si and Ge as well as the Mn content in Zn2Si1-XGeXO4:Mn thin film phosphors could be more efficiently optimized in order to obtain the highest intensity in electroluminescent and photoluminescent emissions. High luminances of 11800 and 1536 cd/m2 were obtained in Zn2Si0.6Ge0.4O4:Mn thin-film electroluminescent devices fabricated under optimized conditions and driven at 1 kHz and 60 Hz, respectively.

The driving frequency dependence of EL characteristics were investigated in thick ceramic insulating type thin-film electroluminescent (TFEL) devices with various Mn-activated Y2O3-based phosphor thin-film emitting layers driven by a sinusoidal wave voltage. High luminous efficiencies of approximately 10 and 1 lm/W were obtained in the TFEL devices driven at 60 Hz and 1 kHz, respectively. The difference in luminous efficiency was mainly caused by the increase of input power in 1 kHz-driven-devices resulting from a dielectric loss of a thick BaTiO3 ceramic sheet used as the insulating layer. The correlation between the sound emission from the devices and the effective power consumed in the devices was found with variations in both the applied voltage and the frequency. The higher input power of the 1 kHz-driven-device may be attributable to sound emissions resulting from the piezo-electricity of BaTiO3 ceramics.

A reactive sputtering method using an Electron-Cyclotron-Resonance (ECR) microwave plasma was used to deposit Ni-Zn ferrite thin-films for a soft magnetic backlayer of Co-containing spinel ferrite thin-film perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) media. The Ni-Zn spinel ferrite thin-films with a preferential orientation of (100) and a relatively low coercivity of 15 Oe were obtained at a high deposition rate of 14 nm/min and at a temperature below 200 degrees C. Although post-annealing treatment in air at 200 degrees C was effective to decrease the coercivity of the Ni-Zn ferrite thin-films, the saturation magnetization and initial permeability decreased and the surface smoothness was deteriorated simultaneously. The Ni-Zn ferrite thin-films prepared by ECR sputtering are promising as the backlayer of the perpendicular magnetic recording medium, but further improvement is required in terms of the soft magnetic properties, the grain size and the surface roughness.

Co-containing ferrite thin-film/Mn-Zn ferrite thin-film double-layered perpendicular media were prepared using reactive ECR sputtering and magnetron sputtering methods, and their magnetic and structural properties and recording characteristics were studied. The Mn-Zn ferrite thin-film backlayer had saturation magnetization of 3.5 kG and coercivity of 60 Oe. Reproduced voltage for the Co-containing ferrite thin-film/Mn-Zn ferrite thin-film double-layered medium was about twice of that for the Co-containing ferrite single-layer medium.