Extraction of Subgap Density of States in Amorphous InGaZnO Thin-Film Transistors by Using Multifrequency Capacitance–Voltage Characteristics

Abstract

An extraction technique for subgap density of states (DOS) in an n-channel amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistor (TFT) by using multifrequency capacitance-voltage (C -V) characteristics is proposed and verified by comparing the measured I- V characteristics with the technology computer-aided design simulation results incorporating the extracted DOS as parameters. It takes on the superposition of exponential tail states and exponential deep states with characteristic parameters for N TA = 1.1 × 1017 cm-3 · eV-1, N DA = 4 × 1015 cm-3 · eV-1, kT TA = 0.09 eV, and kT DA = 0.4 eV. The proposed technique allows obtaining the frequency-independent C-V curve, which is very useful for oxide semiconductor TFT modeling and characterization, and considers the nonlinear relation between the energy level of DOS and the gate voltage V GS. In addition, it is a simple, fast, and accurate extraction method for DOS in amorphous InGaZnO TFTs without optical illumination, temperature dependence, and numerical iteration.