Effect of Annealing Temperature on the Electrical Performance of SiZnSnO Thin Film Transistors Fabricated by Radio Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

Amorphous oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated with 0.5 wt% silicon doped zinc tin oxide (a-0.5SZTO) thin film deposited by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. In order to investigate the effect of annealing treatment on the electrical properties of TFTs, a-0.5SZTO thin films were annealed at three different temperatures ($300^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$, and $700^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours in a air atmosphere. The structural and electrical properties of a-0.5SZTO TFTs were measured using X-ray diffraction and a semiconductor analyzer. As annealing temperature increased from $300^{\circ}C$ to $500^{\circ}C$, no peak was observed. This provided crystalline properties indicating that the amorphous phase was observed up to $500^{\circ}C$. The electrical properties of a-0.5SZTO TFTs, such as the field effect mobility (${\mu}_{FE}$) of $24.31cm^2/Vs$, on current ($I_{ON}$) of $2.38{\times}10^{-4}A$, and subthreshold swing (S.S) of 0.59 V/decade improved with the thermal annealing treatment. This improvement was mainly due to the increased carrier concentration and decreased structural defects by rearranged atoms. However, when a-0.5SZTO TFTs were annealed at $700^{\circ}C$, a crystalline peak was observed. As a result, electrical properties degraded. ${\mu}_{FE}$ was $0.06cm^2/Vs$, $I_{ON}$ was $5.27{\times}10^{-7}A$, and S.S was 2.09 V/decade. This degradation of electrical properties was mainly due to increased interfacial and bulk trap densities of forming grain boundaries caused by the annealing treatment.