In This Issue

Metal oxide (MO) semiconductors exhibit properties that could help advance next-generation thin-film electronics. However, fabricating these devices requires expensive vapor deposition techniques, and alternative methods to produce MO electronics of optimal performance are unavailable. Xinge Yu et al. (pp. 3217– 3222) describe a low-temperature, thickness-controlled coating process known as spray-combustion synthesis (SCS), which yields high-performance, solution-processed MO electronics with technologically relevant characteristics. The authors synthesized a component found in flat panel displays called indium-galliumzinc-oxide (IGZO) transistors, which displayed properties rivaling those of the same component generated by sputter deposition, a common vapor deposition process used to manufacture integrated circuits and antireflective coatings on glass. In addition, by combining two established methods—combustion processing and spray coating—SCS requires only one step to produce highmobility MO films at precisely controlled thicknesses, thereby constituting an efficient, low-temperature process for growing widely used oxide film materials. The findings suggest that SCS can be adapted to fabricate microelectronic components for applications that use nanoscopic MO films, according to the authors. — T.J.