• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.207.2-207.2
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• 2013

Oxide-based thin film transistors have been attempted as powerful candidates for driving circuits for active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes and transparent electronics. The oxide TFTs are based on the amorphous multi-component oxides involving zinc, indium, and/or tin elements as main cation sources. The current work employed RF sputtering in order to deposit zinc-tin oxide thin films applicable to transparent oxide thin film transistors. The deposited thin film was characterized and probed in terms of materials and devices. The physical/chemical characterizations were performed using X-ray diffraction, Atomic Force Microscopy, Spectroscopic Ellipsometry, and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. The thin film transistors were fabricated using a bottom-gated structure where thermally-grown silicon oxide layers were applied as gate-dielectric materials. The inherent properties of oxide thin films are combined with the corresponding device performances with the aim to fabricating the multi-component oxide thin films being optimized towards transparent electronics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.256-256
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• 2012

Oxide semiconductors such as zinc tin oxide (ZTO) or indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) have attracted a lot of research interest owing to their high potential for application as thin film transistors (TFTs) [1,2]. However, the instability of oxide TFTs remains as an obstacle to overcome for practical applications to electronic devices. Several studies have reported that the electrical characteristics of ZnO-based transistors are very sensitive to oxygen, hydrogen, and water [3,4,5]. To improve the reliability issue for the amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor, back channel passivation layer is essential for the long term bias stability. In this study, we investigated the instability of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) by the back channel contaminations. The effect of back channel contaminations (humidity or oxygen) on oxide transistor is of importance because it might affect the transistor performance. To remove this environmental condition, we performed vacuum seasoning before the deposition of hybrid passivation layer and acquired improved stability. It was found that vacuum seasoning can remove the back channel contamination if a-IGZO film. Therefore, to achieve highly stable oxide TFTs we suggest that adsorbed chemical gas molecules have to be eliminated from the back-channel prior to forming the passivation layers.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.966-969
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• 2012

From a practical viewpoint, the topic of electrical stability in oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) has attracted strong interest from researchers. Positive bias stress and constant current stress tests on indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO)-TFTs have revealed that an IGZO-TFT with a larger Ga portion has stronger stability, which is closely related with the strong binding of O atoms, as determined from an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.117-124
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• 2018

Junctionless amorphous InGaZnO thin film transistors with different film thickness have been fabricated. Their device performance parameters were extracted and gate oxide breakdown voltages were analyzed with different film thickness. The device performances were enhanced with increase of film thickness but the gate oxide breakdown voltages were decreased. The device performances were enhanced with increase of temperatures but the gate oxide breakdown voltages were decreased due to the increased drain current. The drain current under illumination was increased due to photo-excited electron-hole pair generation but the gate oxide breakdown voltages were decreased. The reason for decreased breakdown voltage with increase of film thickness, operation temperature and light intensity was due to the increased number of channel electrons and more injection into the gate oxide layer. One should decide the gate oxide thickness with considering the film thickness and operating temperature when one decides to replace the junctionless amorphous InGaZnO thin film transistors as BEOL transistors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.304.1-304.1
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• 2014

Flat-panel displays have been growing as an essential everyday product in the current information/communication ages in the unprecedented speed. The forward-coming applications require light-weightness, higher speed, higher resolution, and lower power consumption, along with the relevant cost. Such specifications demand for a new concept-based materials and applications, unlike Si-based technologies, such as amorphous Si and polycrystalline Si thin film transistors. Since the introduction of the first concept on the oxide-based thin film transistors by Hosono et al., amorphous oxide thin film transistors have been gaining academic/industrial interest, owing to the facile synthesis and reproducible processing despite of a couple of shortcomings. The current work places its main emphasis on the binary oxides composed of ZnO and SnO2. RF sputtering was applied to the fabrication of amorphous oxide thin film devices, in the form of bottom-gated structures involving highly-doped Si wafers as gate materials and thermal oxide (SiO2) as gate dielectrics. The physical/chemical features were characterized using atomic force microscopy for surface morphology, spectroscopic ellipsometry for optical parameters, X-ray diffraction for crystallinity, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy for identification of chemical states. The combined characterizations on Zn-Sn-O thin films are discussed in comparison with the device performance based on thin film transistors involving Zn-Sn-O thin films as channel materials, with the aim to optimizing high-performance thin film transistors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.106-106
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• 2011

Recently, zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films have attracted great attention as a promising candidate for various electronic applications such as transparent electrodes, thin film transistors, and optoelectronic devices. ZnO thin films have a wide band gap energy of 3.37 eV and transparency in visible region. Moreover, ZnO thin films can be deposited in a poly-crystalline form even at room temperature, extending the choice of substrates including even plastics. Therefore, it is possible to realize thin film transistors by using ZnO thin films as the active channel layer. In this work, we investigated influence of oxygen partial pressure on ZnO thin films and fabricated ZnO-based thin film transistors. ZnO thin films were deposited on glass substrates by using a pulsed laser deposition technique in various oxygen partial pressures from 20 to 100 mTorr at room temperature. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission line method (TLM), and UV-Vis spectroscopy were employed to study the structural, electrical, and optical properties of the ZnO thin films. As a result, 80 mTorr was optimal condition for active layer of thin film transistors, since the active layer of thin film transistors needs high resistivity to achieve low off-current and high on-off ratio. The fabricated ZnO-based thin film transistors operated in the enhancement mode with high field effect mobility and low threshold voltage.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.534-536
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• 2009

We have fabricated solution-processed zinc-tin oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) and simple circuits on glass substrates. We report a solutionprocessed zinc-tin oxide TFTs on silicon wafer with mobility greater than 9 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ (W/L = 100/5 ${\mu}m$) and threshold voltage variation of less than 1 V after bias-stressing. Also, we fabricated solution-processed zinc-tin oxide circuits including inverters and 7-stage ring oscillators fabricated on glass substrates using the developed zinc-tin oxide TFTs.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.609-614
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• 2014

We fabricated amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) transparent thin-film transistors (TTFTs). The effects of Al electrode on the mobility and threshold voltage of the ZTO TTFTs were investigated. It was found that the aluminum (Al)-ZTO contact decreased the mobility and increased the threshold voltage. Traps, originating from $AlO_x$, were assumed to be the cause of degradation. An indium tin oxide film was inserted between Al and ZTO as a buffer layer, forming an ohmic contact, which was revealed to improve the performance of ZTO TTFTs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.433-438
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• 2015

Zinc tin oxide transparent thin film transistors (ZTO TTFTs) were fabricated by using $n^+$ Si wafers as gate electrodes. Indium (In), aluminum (Al), indium tin oxide (ITO), silver (Ag), and gold (Au) were employed for source and drain electrodes, and the mobility and the threshold voltage of ZTO TTFTs were observed as a function of electrode. The ZTO TTFTs adopting In as electrodes showed the highest mobility and the lowest threshold voltage. It was shown that Ag and Au are not suitable for the electrodes of ZTO TTFTs. As the results of this study, it is considered that the interface properties of electrode/ZTO are more influential in the properties of ZTO TTFTs than the conductivity of electrode.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.307.1-307.1
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• 2016

Amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin films are being widely studied for a variety electronic applications such as the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) in the field of photoelectric elements and thin film transistors (TFTs). Thin film transistors (TFTs) with transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (TAOS) represent a major advance in the field of thin film electronics. Examples of TAOS materials include zinc tin oxide (ZTO), indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), indium zinc oxide, and indium zinc tin oxide. Among them, ZTO has good optical and electrical properties (high transmittance and larger than 3eV band gap energy). Furthermore ZTO does not contain indium or gallium and is relatively inexpensive and non-toxic. In this study, ZTO thin films were formed by UHV RF magnetron co-sputter deposition on silicon substrates and sapphires. The films were deposited from ZnO and SnO2 target in an RF argon and oxygen plasma. The deposition condition of ZTO thin films were controlled by RF power and post anneal temperature using rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The deposited and annealed films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), ultraviolet and visible light (UV-VIS) spectrophotometer.