High-Performance Indium Oxide Thin-Film Transistors With Aluminum Oxide Passivation

• Published in: IEEE electron device letters Vol. 40; no. 12; pp. 1949 - 1952
• Main Authors: Ding, Yanan, Fan, Caixuan, Fu, Chuanyu, Meng, You, Liu, Guoxia, Shan, Fukai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aluminum oxide; A₂O₃ passivation; Electrodes; high-k ZrO; Hysteresis; Indium oxides; In₂O; Passivation; Passivity; Performance evaluation; Semiconductor devices; Thin film transistors; thin-film transistor; Transistors; Zirconium dioxide
• ISSN: 0741-3106; 1558-0563
• DOI: 10.1109/LED.2019.2947762

In this letter, high-performance thin-film transistors (TFTs), with indium oxide (In 2 O 3 ) as front channel layer, high permittivity ZrO 2 as dielectric layer, and aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) as passivation layers were integrated by a fully solution process. It is found that the incorporation of Al 2 O 3 passivation layer gives rise to a sharp decrease in the off current (I off ) and a corresponding increase in the on/off current ratio (I on /I off ) of the TFTs, compared to that without Al 2 O 3 passivation. Furthermore, the thickness effect of the passivation layer on the performance of In 2 O 3 /ZrO 2 TFTs has been investigated systematically. The In 2 O 3 /ZrO 2 TFTs with optimized Al 2 O 3 passivation layers can be operated at 3 V with high performance, including a high field-effect mobility of 21.22 cm 2 N s, a large I on /I off of 10 7 and a negligible hysteresis (~0 V). This work demonstrates an effective strategy for the construction of high performance TFTs by incorporating the passivation layer.