Abstract
Indium–gallium–zinc oxide (IGZO) films, deposited by sputtering at room temperature, still require activation to achieve satisfactory semiconductor characteristics. Thermal treatment is typically carried out at temperatures above 300 °C. Here, we propose activating sputter- processed IGZO films using simultaneous ultraviolet and thermal (SUT) treatments to decrease the required temperature and enhance their electrical characteristics and stability. SUT treatment effectively decreased the amount of carbon residues and the number of defect sites related to oxygen vacancies and increased the number of metal oxide (M–O) bonds through the decomposition-rearrangement of M–O bonds and oxygen radicals. Activation of IGZO TFTs using the SUT treatment reduced the processing temperature to 150 °C and improved various electrical performance metrics including mobility, on-off ratio, and threshold voltage shift (positive bias stress for 10,000 s) from 3.23 to 15.81 cm2/Vs, 3.96 × 107 to 1.03 × 108, and 11.2 to 7.2 V, respectively.
Highlights
Indium–gallium–zinc oxide (IGZO) films, deposited by sputtering at room temperature, still require activation to achieve satisfactory semiconductor characteristics
Even though IGZO films can be deposited on substrates at room temperature using RF sputtering, additional thermal treatments are needed for activation in order to obtain satisfactory semiconductor characteristics[2]
This is because ion bombardment during RF sputtering deposits metal-oxide compositions that are typically randomly deposited and generates structural defect sites related to oxygen vacancies[3]
Summary
Indium–gallium–zinc oxide (IGZO) films, deposited by sputtering at room temperature, still require activation to achieve satisfactory semiconductor characteristics. To facilitate the organization of chemical bonds and reduce the number of defect sites, thermal treatment of the substrate is performed simultaneously with the sputtering process and/or activation is conducted after film deposition using a thermal treatment at temperatures above 300 °C (Fig. 1(b))[4,10].
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