Electrical Characteristics and Stability Improvement of Top-Gate In-Ga-Zn-O Thin-Film Transistors with Al2O3/TEOS Oxide Gate Dielectrics

In this work, two stacked gate dielectrics of Al2O3/tetraethyl-orthosilicate (TEOS) oxide were deposited by using the equivalent capacitance with 100-nm thick TEOS oxide on the patterned InGaZnO layers to evaluate the electrical characteristics and stability improvement of amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) devices, including positive bias stress (PBS) and negative bias stress (NBS) tests. Three different kinds of gate dielectrics (Al2O3, TEOS, Al2O3/TEOS) were used to fabricate four types of devices, differing by the gate dielectric, as well as its thickness. As the Al2O3 thickness of Al2O3/TEOS oxide dielectric stacks increased, both the on-current and off-current decreased, and the transfer curves shifted to larger voltages. The lowest ∆Vth of 0.68 V and ∆S.S. of −0.03 V/decade from hysteresis characteristics indicate that the increase of interface traps and charge trapping between the IGZO channel and gate dielectrics is effectively inhibited by using two stacked dielectrics with 10-nm thick Al2O3 and 96-nm thick TEOS oxide. The lowest ∆Vth and ∆S.S. values of a-IGZO TFTs with 10-nm thick Al2O3 and 96-nm thick TEOS oxide gate dielectrics according to the PBS and NBS tests were shown to have the best electrical stability in comparison to those with the Al2O3 or TEOS oxide single-layer dielectrics.