Meyer–Neldel Rule and Extraction of Density of States in Amorphous Indium–Gallium–Zinc-Oxide Thin-Film Transistor by Considering Surface Band Bending

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed the temperature-dependent characteristics of amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). We observed that a-IGZO TFTs obey the Meyer–Neldel rule (MN rule) at low gate-to-source voltage (VGS) and the inverse MN rule at high VGS, both of which can be explained by the statistical shift of Fermi level and electrostatic potential. Large Fermi level movement for small VGS change and the inverse MN rule, which are hardly observed for conventional amorphous TFTs, indicate that there is a very low density of state (DOS) in the sub-bandgap region for a-IGZO TFTs and the performance of TFTs is not affected by contact characteristics, respectively. By using the field-effect method and considering surface band bending, we extracted the DOS in the sub-bandgap region, the distribution of which is clearly distinguished by deep and tail states. The calculated parameters for tail and deep states were Nta = 3.5 ×1017 cm-3 eV-1, Eta = 0.18 eV, Nda = 1.6×1016 cm-3 eV-1, and σda = 0.21 eV.