• 한국재료학회지
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• 제20권8호
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• pp.401-407
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• 2010

We studied the influence of different types of metal electrodes on the performance of solution-processed zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin-film transistors. The ZTO thin-film was obtained by spin-coating the sol-gel solution made from zinc acetate and tin acetate dissolved in 2-methoxyethanol. Various metals, Al, Au, Ag and Cu, were used to make contacts with the solution-deposited ZTO layers by selective deposition through a metal shadow mask. Contact resistance between the metal electrode and the semiconductor was obtained by a transmission line method (TLM). The device based on an Al electrode exhibited superior performance as compared to those based on other metals. Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) allowed us to measure the work function of the oxide semiconductor to understand the variation of the device performance as a function of the types metal electrode. The solution-processed ZTO contained nanopores that resulted from the burnout of the organic species during the annealing. This different surface structure associated with the solution-processed ZTO gave a rise to a different work function value as compared to the vacuum-deposited counterpart. More oxygen could be adsorbed on the nanoporous solution-processed ZTO with large accessible surface areas, which increased its work function. This observation explained why the solution-processed ZTO makes an ohmic contact with the Al electrode.

• 한국재료학회지
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.37-43
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• 2009

Silicon dioxide as gate dielectrics was grown at $400^{\circ}C$ on a polycrystalline Si substrate by inductively coupled plasma oxidation using a mixture of $O_2$ and $N_2O$ to improve the performance of polycrystalline Si thin film transistors. In conventional high-temperature $N_2O$ annealing, nitrogen can be supplied to the $Si/SiO_2$ interface because a NO molecule can diffuse through the oxide. However, it was found that nitrogen cannot be supplied to the Si/$SiO_2$ interface by plasma oxidation as the $N_2O$ molecule is broken in the plasma and because a dense Si-N bond is formed at the $SiO_2$ surface, preventing further diffusion of nitrogen into the oxide. Nitrogen was added to the $Si/SiO_2$ interface by the plasma oxidation of mixtures of $O_2/N_2O$ gas, leading to an enhancement of the field effect mobility of polycrystalline Si TFTs due to the reduction in the number of trap densities at the interface and at the Si grain boundaries due to nitrogen passivation.

• 한국재료학회지
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• 제30권11호
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• pp.615-620
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• 2020

Oxide semiconductor, represented by a-IGZO, has been commercialized in the market as active layer of TFTs of display backplanes due to its various advantages over a-Si. a-IGZO can be deposited at room temperature by RF magnetron sputtering process; however, additional thermal annealing above 300℃ is required to obtain good semiconducting properties and stability. These temperature are too high for common flexible substrates like PET, PEN, and PI. In this work, effects of microwave annealing time on IGZO thin film and associated thin-film transistors are demonstrated. As the microwave annealing time increases, the electrical properties of a-IGZO TFT improve to a degree similar to that during thermal annealing. Optimal microwave annealed IGZO TFT exhibits mobility, SS, V_th, and V_H of 6.45 ㎠/Vs, 0.17 V/dec, 1.53 V, and 0.47 V, respectively. PBS and NBS stability tests confirm that microwave annealing can effectively improve the interface between the dielectric and the active layer.

• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제16권12호
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• pp.1065-1070
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• 2003

HTO(High Temperature Oxide) films are mainly used as a gate insulator for polysilicon thin film transistors(Poly-Si TFT's). The HTO films, however, show the demerits of a high leakage current and a low electric breakdown voltage comparing with conventional thermal oxides even though they have a better surface in roughness than the thermal oxides. In this paper, we propose an ONO(Oxide-Nitride-Oxide) multilayer as the gate insulator for poly-Si TFT's. The leakage current and electric breakdown voltage of the ONO and HTO were measured. The drain current variation of poly-Si TFT's with a variety of gate insulators was observed. The thickness optimization in ONO films was carried out by studying I$\_$on/I$\_$off/ ratio of the poly-Si TFT's as a function of the thickness of ONO film adopted as gate insulator.

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제67권6호
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• pp.799-803
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• 2018

We demonstrated memory thin-film transistors (MTFTs) with organic ferroelectric polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) and an amorphous oxide semiconducting indium gallium zinc oxide channel on the elastomeric substrate. The dielectric constant for the P(VDF-TrFE) thin film prepared on the elastomeric substrate was calculated to be 10 at a high frequency of 1 MHz. The voltage-dependent capacitance variations showed typical butterfly-shaped hysteresis behaviors owing to the polarization reversal in the film. The carrier mobility and memory on/off ratio of the MTFTs showed $15cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ and $10^6$, respectively. This result indicates that the P(VDF-TrFE) film prepared on the elastomeric substrate exhibits ferroelectric natures. The fabricated MTFTs exhibited sufficiently encouraging device characteristics even on the elastomeric substrate to realize mechanically stretchable nonvolatile memory devices.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.254-255
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• 2012

Interest in nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si) thin films has been growing because of their favorable processing conditions for certain electronic devices. In particular, there has been an increase in the use of nc-Si thin films in photovoltaics for large solar cell panels and in thin film transistors for large flat panel displays. One of the most important material properties for these device applications is the macroscopic charge-carrier mobility. Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) or nc-Si is a basic material in thin film transistors (TFTs). However, a-Si:H based devices have low carrier mobility and bias instability due to their metastable properties. The large number of trap sites and incomplete hydrogen passivation of a-Si:H film produce limited carrier transport. The basic electrical properties, including the carrier mobility and stability, of nc-Si TFTs might be superior to those of a-Si:H thin film. However, typical nc-Si thin films tend to have mobilities similar to a-Si films, although changes in the processing conditions can enhance the mobility. In polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin films, the performance of the devices is strongly influenced by the boundaries between neighboring crystalline grains. These grain boundaries limit the conductance of macroscopic regions comprised of multiple grains. In much of the work on poly-Si thin films, it was shown that the performance of TFTs was largely determined by the number and location of the grain boundaries within the channel. Hence, efforts were made to reduce the total number of grain boundaries by increasing the average grain size. However, even a small number of grain boundaries can significantly reduce the macroscopic charge carrier mobility. The nano-crystalline or polymorphous-Si development for TFT and solar cells have been employed to compensate for disadvantage inherent to a-Si and micro-crystalline silicon (${\mu}$-Si). Recently, a novel process for deposition of nano-crystralline silicon (nc-Si) thin films at room temperature was developed using neutral beam assisted chemical vapor deposition (NBaCVD) with a neutral particle beam (NPB) source, which controls the energy of incident neutral particles in the range of 1~300 eV in order to enhance the atomic activation and crystalline of thin films at room temperature. In previous our experiments, we verified favorable properties of nc-Si thin films for certain electronic devices. During the formation of the nc-Si thin films by the NBaCVD with various process conditions, NPB energy directly controlled by the reflector bias and effectively increased crystal fraction (~80%) by uniformly distributed nc grains with 3~10 nm size. The more resent work on nc-Si thin film transistors (TFT) was done. We identified the performance of nc-Si TFT active channeal layers. The dependence of the performance of nc-Si TFT on the primary process parameters is explored. Raman, FT-IR and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to study the microstructures and the crystalline volume fraction of nc-Si films. The electric properties were investigated on Cr/SiO2/nc-Si metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors.

• Journal of Information Display
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.137-142
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• 2009

Transparent top-gate Al-Zn-Sn-O (AZTO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) with an $Al_2O_3$ protective layer (PL) on an active layer were studied, and a transparent 2.5-inch QCIF+AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display panel was fabricated using an AZTO TFT backplane. The AZTO active layers were deposited via RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature, and the PL was deposited via two different atomic-layer deposition (ALD) processes. The mobility and subthreshold slope were superior in the TFTs annealed in vacuum and with oxygen plasma PLs compared to the TFTs annealed in $O_2$ and with water vapor PLs, but the bias stability of the TFTs annealed in $O_2$ and with water vapor PLs was excellent.

• Electronic Materials Letters
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• 제14권6호
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• pp.749-754
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• 2018

Previous studies have reported on the mechanical robustness and chemical stability of flexible amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) on plastic substrates both in flat and curved states. In this study, we investigate how the polyimide (PI) substrate affects hydrogen concentration in the a-IGZO layer, which subsequently influences the device performance and stability under bias-temperature-stress. Hydrogen increases the carrier concentration in the active layer, but it also electrically deactivates intrinsic defects depending on its concentration. The influence of hydrogen varies between the TFTs fabricated on a glass substrate to those on a PI substrate. Hydrogen concentration is 5% lower in devices on a PI substrate after annealing, which increases the hysteresis characteristics from 0.22 to 0.55 V and also the threshold voltage shift under positive bias temperature stress by 2 ${\times}$ compared to the devices on a glass substrate. Hence, the analysis and control of hydrogen flux is crucial to maintaining good device performance and stability of a-IGZO TFTs.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정보디스플레이학회 2004년도 Asia Display / IMID 04
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• pp.1254-1257
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• 2004

Comparative study on the effects of $H_2$ vs. $O_2$ plasma pretreatment of gate oxide on the degradation phenomenon of p-channel low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) thin-film transistors (TFTs) were performed. After high drain current stress (HDCS) with $V_{gs}$ = $V_{ds}$, the p-channel TFTs pretreated by $O_2$ plasma showed increased immunity to the degradation of device characteristics such as threshold voltage and maximum field effect mobility because of the higher binding energy of Si-O bond than that of Si-H bond. The investigation of degradation phenomenon of these parameters with the applied power suggests that self-heating can be the major cause of degradation of polysilicon TFTs.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정보디스플레이학회 2008년도 International Meeting on Information Display
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• pp.1097-1100
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• 2008

We demonstrate that the performance of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFT) can be optimized by controlling the interfaces between IGZO and sandwiching insulators and by proper deposition of IGZO layer. Specifically, contact and channel resistances are decreased by reducing IGZO bulk resistance and optimizing dry-etch process, respectively. Field-effect mobility ($\mu_{FE}$) and subthreshold gate swing (S) are further enhanced by fine-tuning IGZO deposition condition.