• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.497-497
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• 2013

Semiconducting amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) has attracted significant research attention as improved deposition techniques have made it possible to make high-quality a-IGZO thin films. IGZO thin films have several advantages over thin film transistors (TFTs) based on other semiconducting channel layers.The electron mobility in IGZO devices is relatively high, exceeding amorphous Si (a-Si) by a factor of 10 and most organic devices by a factor of $10^2$. Moreover, in contrast to other amorphous semiconductors, highly conducting degenerate states can be obtained with IGZO through doping, yet such a state cannot be produced with a-Si. IGZO thin films are capable of mobilities greaterthan 10 $cm^2$/Vs (higher than a-Si:H), and are transparent at visible wavelengths. For oxide semiconductors, carrier concentrations can be controlled through oxygen vacancy concentration. Hence, adjusting the oxygen partial pressure during deposition and post-deposition processing provides an effective method of controlling oxygen concentration. In this study, we deposited IGZO thinfilms at optimized conditions and then analyzed the film's electrical properties, surface morphology, and crystal structure. Then, we explored how to generate IGZO thin films using DC magnetron sputtering. We also describe the construction and characteristics of a bottom-gate-type TFT, including the output and transfer curves and bias stress instability mechanism.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.24-27
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• 2009

Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) thin films were deposited onto 300 nm-thick oxidized Si substrates and glass substrates by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of IGZO targets at room temperature. FESEM and XRD analyses indicate that non-annealed and annealed IGZO thin films exhibit an amorphous structure. To investigate the effect of an annealing treatment, the films were thermally treated at $300^{\circ}C$ for 1hr in air. The IGZO TFTs structure was a bottom-gate type in which electrodes were deposited by the DC magnetron sputtering of Ti and Au targets at room temperature. The non-annealed and annealed IGZO TFTs exhibit an $I_{on}/I_{off}$ ratio of more than $10^5$. The saturation mobility and threshold voltage of nonannealed IGZO TFTs was $4.92{\times}10^{-1}cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and 1.46V, respectively, whereas these values for the annealed TFTs were $1.49{\times}10^{-1}cm^2/V{\cdot}$ and 15.43V, respectively. It is believed that an increase in the surface roughness after an annealing treatment degrades the quality of the device. The transmittances of the IGZO thin films were approximately 80%. These results demonstrate that IGZO thin films are suitable for use as transparent thin film transistors (TTFTs).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.463-473
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• 2023

In recent years, the transparent amorphous oxide thin film transistor represented by indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) has become the first choice of the next generation of integrated circuit control components. This article contributes an overview of IGZO thin-film transistors (TFTs), including their fundamental principles and recent advancements. The paper outlines various TFT structures and places emphasis on the fabrication process of the active layer. The result showed that the size of the active layer including the length-to-width ratio and the width could have a significant effect on the mobility. And the process of TFT could influence the crystal structure of IGZO thin film. Furthermore, the article presents an overview of recent applications of IGZO TFTs, such as their use in display drivers and TFT memories. At last, the future development of IGZO TFT is forecasted in this paper.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.18-20
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• 2016

Transparent and conducting IGZO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering on thin Cu coated glass substrates to investigate the effect of a Cu buffer layer on the structural, optical, and electrical film properties. Although X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that both the IGZO single layer and IGZO/Cu bi-layered films were in the amorphous phase, the IGZO/Cu films showed a lower resistivity of 5.7×10⁻⁴ Ωcm due to the increased mobility and high carrier concentration. The decreased optical transmittance of the IGZO/Cu films was also attributed to a one order of magnitude higher carrier concentration than the IGZO films. From the observed results, the thin Cu layer is postulated to be an effective buffer film that can enhance the opto-electrical performance of the IGZO films in transparent thin film transistors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.217-217
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• 2016

The amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) is widely accepted as a promising channel material for thin-film transistor (TFT) applications owing to their outstanding electrical properties [1, 2]. However, a-IGZO TFTs have still suffered from their bias instability with illumination [1-4]. Up to now, many researchers have studied the sub-gap density of states (DOS) as the root cause of instability. It is well known that defect states can influence on the performances and stabilities of a-IGZO TFTs. The defects states should be closely related with the deposition condition, including sputtering power, and pressure. Nevertheless, it has not been reported how these defects are created during conventional RF magnetron sputtering. In general, during conventional RF magnetron sputtering process, negative oxygen ions (NOIs) can be generated by electron attachment in oxygen atom near target surface and then accelerated up to few hundreds eV by a self-bias; at this time, the high energy bombardment of NOIs induce defects in oxide thin films. Recently, we have reported that the properties of IGZO thin films are strongly related with effects of NOIs which are generated during the sputtering process [5]. From our previous results, the electrical characteristics and the chemical bonding states of a-IGZO thin films were depended with the bombardment energy of NOIs. And also, we suggest that the deep sub-gap states in a-IGZO as well as thin film properties would be influenced by the bombardment of high energetic NOIs during the sputtering process.In this study, we will introduce our novel technology named as Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process to prevent the NOIs bombardment effects and present how much to be improved the properties of a-IGZO thin film by this new deposition method. We deposited a-IGZO thin films by MFSS on SiO2/p-Si and glass substrate at various process conditions, after which we investigated the morphology, optical and electrical properties of the a-IGZO thin films.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1447-1450
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• 2018

The electron spin resonance (ESR) detects point defect of the In-Ga-Zn oxide (IGZO) like singly ionized oxygen vacancies and excess oxygen, and get spin density as a parameter of defect state. So, we demonstrated the spin density measurement of the IGZO film with various deposition conditions and it has linear relationship. Moreover, we matched the spin density with the total BTS and the threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) distribution of the IGZO thin film transistors. The total BTS ${\Delta}V_{th}$ and the $V_{th}$ distribution were degraded due to the spin density increases. The spin density is the useful indicator to predict $V_{th}$ instability of IGZO TFTs.

• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.329-333
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• 2019

Solution-processed oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) have garnered great attention, owing to their many advantages, such as low-cost, large area available for fabrication, mechanical flexibility, and optical transparency. Negative bias stress (NBS)-induced instability of sol-gel IGZO TFTs is one of the biggest concerns arising in practical applications. Thus, understanding the bias stress effect on the electrical properties of sol-gel IGZO TFTs and proposing an effective recovery method for negative bias stressed TFTs is required. In this study, we investigated the variation of transfer characteristics and the corresponding electrical parameters of sol-gel IGZO TFTs caused by NBS and positive bias recovery (PBR). Furthermore, we proposed an effective PBR method for the recovery of negative bias stressed sol-gel IGZO TFTs. The threshold voltage and field-effect mobility were affected by NBS and PBR, while current on/off ratio and sub-threshold swing were not significantly affected. The transfer characteristic of negative bias stressed IGZO TFTs increased in the positive direction after applying PBR with a negative drain voltage, compared to PBR with a positive drain voltage or a drain voltage of 0 V. These results are expected to contribute to the reduction of recovery time of negative bias stressed sol-gel IGZO TFTs.

• 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.