• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.257-257
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• 2011

The amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) materials for use in high performance display research fields are strongly investigated due to its good performance, such as high mobility and better transparency. However, the stability of a-IGZO materials is increasingly becoming one of critical issues due to the sub-gap electron trap sites induced by rough interfaces during deposition processing. It is well-known that the threshold voltage shift is related to interface roughness and oxygen vacancy formed by breaking weak chemical bonds. Here, we report the better properties of transparent oxide transistors by reducing the threshold voltage shift with an external rf plasma supported magnetron sputtering system. Mainly, our sputtering method causes the surface of sample to be sleek, so that it prevents the formation of various defects, such as shallow electron trap sites in the interface. External rf power was applied from 0 to 50W during RF sputtering process to enhance the stability of our oxide transistor without having a large voltage shift. To observe the effects of external rf-plasma source on the properties of our devices, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) are carried out to observe surface roughness and morphology of sputtered thin film. In addition, typical electrical properties, such as I-V characteristics are analyzed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.209.1-209.1
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• 2015

Indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), indium zinc oxide (IZO) 그리고 zinc tin oxide (ZTO) 같은 zinc oxide 기반의 산화물 반도체는 높은 이동도, 투과도 그리고 유연성 같은 장점을 갖고 있어, display application의 backplane 소자로 적용되고 있다. 또한 최근에는 산화물 반도체를 이용한 thin-film transistor (TFT) 뿐만아니라 resistive random access memory (RRAM), flash memory 그리고 pH 센서 등 다양한 반도체 소자에 적용을 위한 연구가 활발히 진행 중이다. 그러나 zinc oxide 기반의 산화물 반도체의 전기 화학적 불안정성은 위와 같은 소자에 적용하는데 제약이 있다. 산화물 반도체의 안정성에 영향을 미치는 다양한 요인들 중 한 가지는, sputter 같은 plasma를 이용한 공정 진행 시 active layer가 plasma에 노출되면서 threshold voltage (Vth)가 급격하게 변화하는 plasma damage effect 이다. 급격한 Vth의 변화는 동작 전압의 불안정성을 가져옴과 동시에 누설전류를 증가시키는 결과를 초래 한다. 따라서 본 연구에서는, IGZO 기반의 TFT를 제작 후 plasma 분위기에 노출시켜, power와 노출 시간에 따른 전기적 특성 변화를 확인 하였다. 또한, thermal annealing을 적용하여 열처리 온도와 시간에 따른 Vth의 회복특성을 조사 하였다. 이러한 결과는 추후 산화물 반도체를 이용한 다양한 소자 설계 시 유용할 것으로 기대된다.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.56-63
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• 2023

In this paper, we studied the effect of electron beam irradiation on sol-gel indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) thin films under air and nitrogen atmosphere and carried out the electrical characterization of the s ol-gel IGZO thin film transistors (TFTs). To investigate the optical properties, crystalline structure and chemical state of the sol-gel IGZO thin films after electron beam irradiation, UV-Visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were carried out. The sol-gel IGZO thin films exhibited over 80% transmittance in the visible range. The XRD analysis confirmed the amorphous nature of the sol-gel IGZO films regardless of electron beam irradiation. When electron beam irradiation was conducted in a nitrogen (N₂) atmosphere, we observed an increased proportion of peaks related to M-O bonding contributed to the improved quality of the thin films. Sol-gel IGZO TFTs subjected to electron beam exposure in a nitrogen atmosphere exhibited enhanced electrical characteristics in terms of on/off ratio and electron mobility. In addition, the electrical parameters of the transistor (on/off ratio, threshold voltage, electron mobility, subthreshold swing) remained relatively stable over time, indicating that the electron beam exposure process in a nitrogen atmosphere could enhance the reliability of IGZO-based thin-film transistors in the fabrication of sol-gel processed TFTs.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.546-549
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• 2009

In this paper, we investigated the effects of different source/drain (S/D) electrode materials in thin film transistors (TFTs) based on indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) semiconductor. A transfer length and effective resistances between S/D electrodes and amorphous IGZO thin-film transistors were examined. Intrinsic TFT parameters were extracted by the transmission line method (TLM) using a series of TFTs with different channel lengths measured at a low drain voltage. The TFTs fabricated with Cu S/D electrodes showed the lowest contact resistance and transfer length indicating good ohmic characteristics, and good transfer characteristics with a field-effect mobility (${\mu}_{FE}$) of 10.0 $cm^2$/Vs.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.47-50
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• 2011

Highly stable amorphous indium.gallium.zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated with an etchstopper and via-hole structure. The TFTs exhibited 40 $cm^2$/V s field-effect mobility and a 0.21 V/dec gate voltage swing. Gate-bias stress induced a negligible threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{th}$) at room temperature. The excellent stability is attribute to the via-hole and etch-stopper structure, in which, the source/drain metal contacts the active a-IGZO layer through two via holes (one on each side), resulting in minimized damage to the a-IGZO layer during the plasma etching of the source/drain metal. The comparison of the effects of the DC and AC stress on the performance of the TFTs at $60^{\circ}C$ showed that there was a smaller ${\Delta}V_{th}$ in the AC stress compared with the DC stress for the same effective stress time, indicating that the trappin of the carriers at the active layer-gate insulator interface was the dominant degradation mechanism.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.143-145
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• 2016

In order to find suitable source and drain (S/D) electrodes for amorphous InGaZnO thin film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs), the specific contact resistance of interface between the channel layers and various S/D electrodes, such as Ti/Au, a-IZO and multilayer of a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO, was investigated using the transmission line model. The a-IGZO TFTs with a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO of S/D electrodes had good performance and low contact resistance due to the homo-junction with channel layer. The stability was measured with different electrodes by a positive bias stress test. The result shows the a-IGZO TFTs with a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO electrodes were more stable than other devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.215.2-215.2
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• 2015

We fabricated dual active layer (DAL) thin film transistors (TFTs) with indium tin zinc oxide (ITZO) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) thin film layers using solution process. The ITZO and IGZO layer were used as the front and back channel, respectively. In order to investigate the bias stress stability of ITZO SAL (single active layer) and ITZO/IGZO DAL TFT, a gate bias stress of 10 V was applied for 1500 s under the dark condition. The SAL TFT composed of ITZO layer shows a poor positive bias stability of ${\delta}VTH$ of 13.7 V, whereas ${\delta}VTH$ of ITZO/IGZO DAL TFT was very small as 2.6 V. In order to find out the evidence of improved bias stress stability, we calculated the total trap density NT near the channel/gate insulator interface. The calculated NT of DAL and SAL TFT were $4.59{\times}10^{11}$ and $2.03{\times}10^{11}cm^{-2}$, respectively. The reason for improved bias stress stability is due to the reduction of defect sites such as pin-hole and pores in the active layer.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.235-237
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• 2016

Oxide/metal/oxide (OMO) thin films were fabricated using amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) and an Ag metal layer on a glass substrate at room temperature. The optical and electrical properties of the a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO samples changed systemically depending on the thickness of the Ag layer. The transmittance in the visible range tends to decrease as the Ag thickness increases while the resistivity, carrier concentration, and Hall mobility tend to improve. The a-IGZO/Ag (13 nm)/a-IGZO thin film with the optimum Ag thickness showed an average transmittance (T_av) of 71.7%, resistivity of 6.63 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm and Hall mobility of 15.22 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.120-124
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• 2016

In this study, we fabricate transparent and bendable a-IGZO (amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide) TFTs (thin-film transistors) with a-IZO (amorphous indium zinc oxide) transparent electrodes on plastic substrates and investigate their electrical characteristics under bending states. Our a-IGZO TFTs show a high transmittance of 82% at a wavelength of 550 nm. And these TFTs have an $I_{on}/I_{off}$ ratio of $1.8{\times}10^8$, a field effect mobility of $15.4cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, and a subthreshold swing of 186 mV/dec. The good electrical characteristics are retained even after bending with a curvature radius of 18 mm corresponding to a strain of 0.5% owing to mechanical durability of the transparent electrodes used in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.220-225
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• 2020

Gallium oxide nano-powder, the key starting material for IGZO target, is fabricated by gas phase synthesis using a new apparatus consist of reaction, transportation, and collection parts. As a result of gallium metal evaporation above 1150℃, Ga2O3 nano-powders, are successfully synthesized. The SEM images of the synthesized powders displace the spherical shaped powders without severe agglomeration. X-ray diffraction and PSA analysis show that the higher temperature at the reaction part results in the better crystallinity and larger powder size of the synthesized Ga2O3. To see the applicability to IGZO target, Ga2O3 nano-powders synthesized at 1250℃ are mixed with indium oxide and zinc oxide (In2O3 : Ga2O3 : ZnO = 1 : 1 : 1), and then sintered at 1400~1500℃. The highest sintered density of 5.83 g/㎤ (= 91 % of relative density) is achieved when sintered at 1450℃, showing better sinterability compared to the commercially available Ga2O3 powder, which has 5.61 g/㎤ of sintered density at the same condition.