Temperature-Dependent Hydrogen Modulations of Ultra-Scaled a-IGZO Thin Film Transistor Under Gate Bias Stress

• Published in: IEEE open journal of nanotechnology Vol. 5; pp. 9 - 16
• Main Authors: Aslam, Muhammad, Chang, Shu-Wei, Chuang, Min-Hui, Chen, Yi-Ho, Lee, Yao-Jen, Li, Yiming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: a-IGZO TFT; atomic layer deposition (ALD); Bias; CMOS; Current leakage; electrical instability; Electrical properties; Electronics; Hafnium oxide; high-κ HfO<named-content xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" content-type="math" xlink:type="simple"> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX"> _2</tex-math> </inline-formula> </named-content>; high-κ HfO<named-content xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" content-type="math" xlink:type="simple"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_2$</tex-math> </named-content>; Indium gallium zinc oxide; Leakage current; Logic gates; negative bias temperature stress (NBTS); oxide semiconductor (OS); positive bias temperature stress (PBTS); Reliability; Silicon; Stress; Substrates; Temperature dependence; Thin film transistors; Thin films; Tin; Trapping
• ISSN: 2644-1292; 2644-1292
• DOI: 10.1109/OJNANO.2024.3386123

Recently, a-IGZO has advanced toward the next-generation electronics system because of its compatibility with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) and back-end-of-line (BOEL) based systems. A systematic electrical characterization of a-IGZO TFT related to reliability issues, such as positive bias temperature stress (PBTS) and negative bias temperature stress (NBTS), would entitle its integration into novel electronics systems. Unexpectedly, PBTS is characterized by the transition of positive V th shift to negative V th shift (ΔV th , the positive shift followed by the stress and temperature activated negative shift). This transition is attributed to charge trapping/trap-site generations and hydrogen migration to the active layer. The ΔV th shift mechanism depends on the temperature and voltage stress. On the other hand, a negative ΔV th shift has been observed during the NBTS operation and could be attributed to the hole trapping at the interface of GI/IGZO. An effective suppression of the gate leakage current has also been observed during reliability tests. Simulation results reveal a pronounced potential at the edges of source and drain regions, and considered the origin of hydrogen migration into the IGZO layer. Thermal image results also reveal the strong temperature/potential distribution at the edges of the source/drain regions, indorsing the simulation results.