• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.6-9
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• 2020

Thin film transistors (TFTs) with large-area, high mobility, and high reliability are important factors for next-generation displays. In particular, thin transistors based on IGZO oxide semiconductors are being actively researched for this application. In this study, several methods for improving the reliability of a-IGZO TFTs by applying various materials on a passivation layer are investigated. In the literature, inorganic SiO₂, TiO₂, Al₂O₃, ZTSO, and organic CYTOP have been used for passivation. In the case of Al₂O₃, excellent stability is exhibited compared to the non-passivation TFT under the conditions of negative bias illumination stress (NBIS) for 3 wavelengths (R, G, B). When CYTOP passivation, SiO₂ passivation, and non-passivation devices were compared under the same positive bias temperature stress (PBTS), the Vth shifts were 2.8 V, 3.3 V, and 4.5 V, respectively. The Vth shifts of TiO₂ passivation and non-passivation devices under the same NBTS were -2.2 V and -3.8 V, respectively. It is expected that the presented results will form the basis for further research to improve the reliability of a-IGZO TFT.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.385-388
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• 2009

We have investigated the effect of the device structure on the performance of polycrystalline ZnO TFT and amorphous AZTO TFT with top gate and bottom gate structure. While the mobility of both TFTs showed relatively similar value in a top and bottom gate structure, bias stability was quite different depending on the device structure. Top gate TFT showed much less Vth shift under positive bias stress compared to that of bottom gate TFT. We attributed this different behavior to the defects formation on the gate insulator induced by energetic bombardment during the active layer deposition in a bottom gate TFT. We suggest the top gate oxide TFT would show more stable behavior under the Vgs bias.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.246-254
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• 2022

Localized heat can be generated using electrically conductive word-lines built into a 3D NAND flash memory string. The heat anneals the gate dielectric layer and improves the endurance and retention characteristics of memory cells. However, even though the electro-thermal annealing can improve the memory operation, studies to investigate material failures resulting from electro-thermal stress have not been reported yet. In this context, this paper investigated how applying electro-thermal annealing of 3D NAND affected mechanical stability. Hot-spots, which are expected to be mechanically damaged during the electro-thermal annealing, can be determined based on understanding material characteristics such as thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity. Finally, several guidelines for improving mechanical stability are provided in terms of bias configuration as well as alternative materials.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.291-294
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• 2015

Recently, ZnO based oxide TFTs used in the flexible and transparent display devices are widely studied. To apply to OLED display switching devices, electrical performance and stability are important issues. In this study, to improve these electrical properties, we fabricated TFTs having Al doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) layer inserted between the gate insulator and ZnO layer. The AZO and ZnO layers are deposited by Atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. I-V transfer characteristics and stability of the suggested devices are investigated under the positive gate bias condition while the channel defects are also analyzed by the photoluminescence spectrum. The TFTs with AZO layer show lower threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) and superior sub-threshold slop. In the case of $V_{th}$ shift after positive gate bias stress, the stability is also better than that of ZnO channel TFTs. This improvement is thought to be caused by the reduced defect density in AZO/ZnO stack devices, which can be confirmed by the photoluminescence spectrum analysis results where the defect related deep level emission of AZO is lower than that of ZnO layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.450-450
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• 2012

In recent days, advances in ZnO-based oxide semiconductor materials have accelerated the development of thin-film transistors (TFTs), which are the building blocks for active matrix flat-panel displays including liquid crystal displays (LCD) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). In particular, the development of high-mobility ZnO-based channel materials has been proven invaluable; thus, there have been many reports of high-performance TFTs with oxide semiconductor channels such as ZnO, InZnO (IZO), ZnSnO (ZTO), and InGaZnO (IGZO). The reliability of oxide TFTs can be improved by examining more stable oxide channel materials. In the present study, we investigated the effects of an ALD-deposited water vapor permeation barrier on the stability of ZnO and HfZnO (HZO) thin film transistors. The device without the water vapor barrier films showed a large turn-on voltage shift under negative bias temperature stress. On the other hand, the suitably protected device with the lowest water vapor transmission rate showed a dramatically improved device performance. As the value of the water vapor transmission rate of the barrier films was decreased, the turn-on voltage instability reduced. The results suggest that water vapor related traps are strongly related to the instability of ZnO and HfZnO TFTs and that a proper combination of water vapor permeation barriers plays an important role in suppressing the device instability.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.209-212
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• 2011

The threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{th}$) under positive-voltage bias stress (PBS) of InGaZnO (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) annealed at different temperatures in air was investigated. The dramatic degradation of the electrical performance was observed at the sample that was annealed at $700^{\circ}C$. The degradation of the saturation mobility (${\mu}_{sat}$) resulted from the diffusion of indium atoms into the interface of the IGZO/gate insulator after crystallization, and the degradation of the subthreshold slope (S-factor) was due to the increase in the interfacial and bulk trap density. In spite of the degradation of the electrical performance of the sample that was annealed at $700^{\circ}C$, it showed a smaller ${\Delta}V_{th}$ under PBS conditions for $10^4$ s than the samples that were annealed at $500^{\circ}C$, which is attributed to the nanocrystal-embedded structure. The sample that was annealed at $600^{\circ}C$ showed the best performance and the smallest ${\Delta}V_{th}$ among the fabricated samples with a ${\mu}_{sat}$ of $9.38cm^2/V$ s, an S-factor of 0.46V/decade, and a ${\Delta}V_{th}$ of 0.009V, which is due to the passivation of the defects by high thermal annealing without structural change.

• Electronic Materials Letters
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.669-677
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• 2018

In this work, the high ${\kappa}$ $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ films with a different Zr concentration have been deposited by atomic layer deposition, and the effect of Zr concentrations on the structure, chemical composition, surface morphology and dielectric properties of $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ films is analyzed by Atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and capacitance-frequency measurement. The effect of Zr concentrations of $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ gate insulator on the electrical property and stability under negative bias illumination stress (NBIS) or temperature stress (TS) of ZnSnO (ZTO) TFTs is firstly investigated. Under NBIS and TS, the much better stability of ZTO TFTs with $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ film as a gate insulator is due to the suppression of oxygen vacancy in ZTO channel layer and the decreased trap states originating from the Zr atom permeation at the $ZTO/Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ interface. It provides a new strategy to fabricate the low consumption and high stability ZTO TFTs for application.

• 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 the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.33-39
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• 2015

In this work, SU-8 passivated IZO thin-film transistors(TFTs) made by solution-processes was investigated for enhancing stability of indium zinc oxide(IZO) TFT. A very viscous negative photoresist SU-8, which has high mechanical and chemical stability, was deposited by spin coating and patterned on top of TFT by photo lithography. To investigate the enhanced electrical performances by using SU-8 passivation layer, the TFT devices were analyzed by X-ray phtoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR). The TFTs with SU-8 passivation layer show good electrical characterestics, such as ${\mu}_{FE}=6.43cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, $V_{th}=7.1V$, $I_{on/off}=10^6$, SS=0.88V/dec, and especially 3.6V of ${\Delta}V_{th}$ under positive bias stress (PBS) for 3600s. On the other hand, without SU-8 passivation, ${\Delta}V_{th}$ was 7.7V. XPS and FTIR analyses results showed that SU-8 passivation layer prevents the oxygen desorption/adsorption processes significantly, and this feature makes the effectiveness of SU-8 passivation layer for PBS.