A new poly-Si TG-TFT with diminished pseudosubthreshold region: theoretical investigation and analysis

In this paper, we have proposed a new poly-Si triple-gate thin-film transistor (TG-TFT) where the front gate consists of two materials and three sections in order to reduce the OFF state leakage current without affecting the ON state voltage. We have used one and three grain-boundaries in the channel for analyzing the electrical characteristics of the poly-Si TG-TFT. The key idea in this paper is to make the dominant conduction mechanism in the channel to be controlled by the accumulation charge density modulation by the gate and not by the gate-induced grain barrier lowering. As a result, we demonstrate that the TG-TFT exhibits a highly diminished pseudosubthreshold region resulting in a substantial OFF state leakage current without any significant change in the ON voltage when compared to a conventional poly-Si TFT (C-TFT). Using two-dimensional and two-carrier device simulation, we have examined various design issues of the TG-TFT and provided the reasons for the improved performance.