Subgap states in p-channel tin monoxide thin-film transistors from temperature-dependent field-effect characteristics

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates the subgap density of states (DOS) in p-type tin monoxide (SnO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) for the first time by using temperature-dependent field-effect measurements. As the temperature increases, the turn-on voltage moves in the positive direction, and the off-current and subthreshold slope continuously increase. We found that the conductivity of the SnO TFT obeys the Meyer–Neldel (MN) rule with a characteristic MN parameter of 28.6 eV−1 in the subthreshold region, from which we successfully extracted the subgap DOS by combing the field-effect method and the MN relation. The extracted subgap DOS from fabricated p-type SnO TFTs are exponentially distributed in energy, and exhibit around two orders of magnitude higher values compared to those of the n-type amorphous indium–gallium–zinc oxide TFTs.