Improved Long-Term Stability of Low-Temperature Polysilicon Thin-Film Transistors by Using a Tandem Gate Insulator with an Atomic Layer of Deposited Silicon Dioxide

Abstract

In this study, we report a substantial improvement in the long-term stability of low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a tandem gate insulator composed of silicon dioxide (SiO2) deposited by using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) tests showed that threshold-voltage (ΔVth) shifts were significantly smaller than when only a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) structure was used. We believe that the unique stoichiometric characteristics and the reduction in the interfacial trap density (Dit) produced by the SiO2 gate insulator that had been fabricated using ALD enhanced the long-term stability of the LTPS TFTs. These results suggest a tandem structure gate insulator with high-quality ALD-based SiO2 thin film can provide an important improvement in the characteristics of the p-channel LTPS TFTs required for advanced active matrix organic light-emitting diodes (AMOLEDs) applications.