Title :
High-Performance Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors Based on Metal-Induced Crystallization in an Oxidizing Atmosphere
Author :
Rongsheng Chen ; Wei Zhou ; Meng Zhang ; Man Wong ; Hoi-Sing Kwok
Author_Institution :
State Key Lab. on Adv. Displays & Optoelectron. Technol., Hong Kong Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Hong Kong, China
Abstract :
An oxidizing rather than the commonly used nonoxidizing atmosphere is used to carry out the thermal process required by the metal-induced crystallization (MIC) of amorphous silicon. Thin-film transistors fabricated on the resulting polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) exhibit improved device characteristics. Since thermal oxidation is known to induce the injection of silicon interstitials, the improvement is attributed to a reduction in the defect population caused by the incorporation of the injected silicon interstitials in the grain boundaries of the MIC poly-Si.
Keywords :
crystallisation; grain boundaries; metals; oxidation; silicon; thermal analysis; thin film transistors; MIC; defect population; device characteristic improvement; grain boundaries; high-performance polycrystalline thin film transistors; interstitial injection; metal-induced crystallization; nonoxidizing atmosphere; thermal oxidation process; Annealing; Atmosphere; Crystallization; Microwave integrated circuits; Nickel; Silicon; Thin film transistors; Polycrystalline silicon; metal-induced crystallization (MIC); oxygen annealing; thin-film transistors (TFTs);
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LED.2015.2409858
