• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.252-253
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• 2011

ZnO-based thin film transistors (TFTs) are of great interest for application in next generation flat panel displays. Most research has been based on amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) TFTs, rather than single binary oxides, such as ZnO, due to the reproducibility, uniformity, and surface smoothness of the IGZO active channel layer. However, recently, intrinsic ZnO-TFTs have been investigated, and TFT- arrayss have been demonstrated as prototypes of flat-panel displays and electronic circuits. However, ZnO thin films have some significant problems for application as an active channel layer of TFTs; it was easy to change the electrical properties of the i-ZnO thin films under external conditions. The variable electrical properties lead to unstable TFTs device characteristics under bias stress and/or temperature. In order to obtain higher performance and more stable ZnO-based TFTs, HZO thin film was used as an active channel layer. It was expected that HZO-TFTs would have more stable electrical characteristics under gate bias stress conditions because the binding energy of Hf-O is greater than that of Zn-O. For deposition of HZO thin films, Hf would be substituted with Zn, and then Hf could be suppressed to generate oxygen vacancies. In this study, the fabrication of the oxide-based TFTs with HZO active channel layer was reported with excellent stability. Application of HZO thin films as an active channel layer improved the TFT device performance and bias stability, as compared to i-ZnO TFTs. The excellent negative bias temperature stress (NBTS) stability of the device was analyzed using the HZO and i-ZnO TFTs transfer curves acquired at a high temperature (473 K).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.334-334
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• 2012

Transparent oxide semiconductors have recently attracted much attention as channel layer materials due to advantageous electrical and optical characteristics such as high mobility, high stability, and good transparency. In addition, transparent oxide semiconductor can be fabricated at low temperature with a low production cost and it permits highly uniform devices such as large area displays. A variety of thin film transistors (TFTs) have been studied including ZnO, InZnO, and InGaZnO as the channel layer. Recently, there are many studies for substitution of Ga in InGaZnO TFTs due to their problem, such as stability of devices. In this work, new quaternary compound materials, tantalum-indium-tin oxide (TaInSnO) thin films were fabricated by using co-sputtering and used for the active channel layer in thin film transistors (TFTs). We deposited TaInSnO films in a mixed gas (O2+Ar) atmosphere by co-sputtering from Ta and ITO targets, respectively. The electric characteristics of TaInSnO TFTs and thin films were investigated according to the RF power applied to the $Ta_2O_5$ target. The addition of Ta elements could suppress the formation of oxygen vacancies because of the stronger oxidation tendency of Ta relative to that of In or Sn. Therefore the free carrier density decreased with increasing RF power of $Ta_2O_5$ in TaInSnO thin film. The optimized characteristics of TaInSnO TFT showed an on/off current ratio of $1.4{\times}108$, a threshold voltage of 2.91 V, a field-effect mobility of 2.37 cm2/Vs, and a subthreshold swing of 0.48 V/dec.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.199-199
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• 2011

Recently, Thin film transistors (TFTs) with amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOSs) can offer an important aspect for next generation displays with high mobility. Several oxide semiconductor such as ZnO, $SnO_2$ and InGaZnO have been extensively researched. Especially, as a well-known binary metal oxide, tin oxide ($SnO_2$), usually acts as n-type semiconductor with a wide band gap of 3.6eV. Over the past several decades intensive research activities have been conducted on $SnO_2$ in the bulk, thin film and nanostructure forms due to its interesting electrical properties making it a promising material for applications in solar cells, flat panel displays, and light emitting devices. But, its application to the active channel of TFTs have been limited due to the difficulties in controlling the electron density and n-type of operation with depletion mode. In this study, we fabricated staggered bottom-gate structure $SnO_2$-TFTs and patterned channel layer used a shadow mask. Then we compare to the performance intrinsic $SnO_2$-TFTs and doping hafnium $SnO_2$-TFTs. As a result, we suggest that can be control the defect formation of $SnO_2$-TFTs by doping hafnium. The hafnium element into the $SnO_2$ thin-films maybe acts to control the carrier concentration by suppressing carrier generation via oxygen vacancy formation. Furthermore, it can be also control the mobility. And bias stability of $SnO_2$-TFTs is improvement using doping hafnium. Enhancement of device stability was attributed to the reduced defect in channel layer or interface. In order to verify this effect, we employed to measure activation energy that can be explained by the thermal activation process of the subthreshold drain current.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.511-516
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• 2023

Amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) with a coplanar structure were fabricated to investigate the feasibility of their potential application in large size organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Drain currents, used as functions of the gate voltages for the TFTs, showed the output currents had slight differences in the saturation region, just as the output currents of the etch stopper TFTs did. The maximum difference in the threshold voltages of the In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) TFTs was as small as approximately 0.57 V. After the application of a positive bias voltage stress for 50,000 s, the values of the threshold voltage of the coplanar structure TFTs were only slightly shifted, by 0.18 V, indicative of their stability. The coplanar structure TFTs were embedded in OLEDs and exhibited a maximum luminance as large as 500 nits, and their color gamut satisfied 99 % of the digital cinema initiatives, confirming their suitability for large size and high resolution OLEDs. Further, the image density of large-size OLEDs embedded with the coplanar structure TFTs was significantly enhanced compared with OLEDs embedded with conventional TFTs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.242-242
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• 2012

Transparent oxide semiconductors are increasingly becoming one of good candidates for high efficient channel materials of thin film transistors (TFTs) in large-area display industries. Compare to the conventional hydrogenated amorphous silicon channel layers, solution processed ZnO-TFTs can be simply fabricated at low temperature by just using a spin coating method without vacuum deposition, thus providing low manufacturing cost. Furthermore, solution based oxide TFT exhibits excellent transparency and enables to apply flexible devices. For this reason, this process has been attracting much attention as one fabrication method for oxide channel layer in thin-film transistors (TFTs). But, poor electrical characteristic of these solution based oxide materials still remains one of issuable problems due to oxygen vacancy formed by breaking weak chemical bonds during fabrication. These electrical properties are expected due to the generation of a large number of conducting carriers, resulting in huge electron scattering effect. Therefore, we study a novel technique to effectively improve the electron mobility by applying environmental annealing treatments with various gases to the solution based Li-doped ZnO TFTs. This technique was systematically designed to vary a different lithium ratio in order to confirm the electrical tendency of Li-doped ZnO TFTs. The observations of Scanning Electron Microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy were performed to investigate structural properties and elemental composition of our samples. In addition, I-V characteristics were carried out by using Keithley 4,200-Semiconductor Characterization System (4,200-SCS) with 4-probe system.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.129-134
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• 2004

The development of fabrication processes of polycrystalline-silicon-thin-film transistors (poly-Si TFTs) at low temperatures is reviewed. Rapid crystallization through laser-induced melt-regrowth has an advantage of formation of crystalline silicon films at a low thermal budget. Solid phase crystallization techniques have also been improved for low temperature processing. Passivation of $SiO_2$/Si interface and grain boundaries is important to achieve high carrier transport properties. Oxygen plasma and $H_2O$ vapor heat treatments are proposed for effective reduction of the density of defect states. TFTs with high performance is reported.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.24-27
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• 2009

Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) thin films were deposited onto 300 nm-thick oxidized Si substrates and glass substrates by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of IGZO targets at room temperature. FESEM and XRD analyses indicate that non-annealed and annealed IGZO thin films exhibit an amorphous structure. To investigate the effect of an annealing treatment, the films were thermally treated at $300^{\circ}C$ for 1hr in air. The IGZO TFTs structure was a bottom-gate type in which electrodes were deposited by the DC magnetron sputtering of Ti and Au targets at room temperature. The non-annealed and annealed IGZO TFTs exhibit an $I_{on}/I_{off}$ ratio of more than $10^5$. The saturation mobility and threshold voltage of nonannealed IGZO TFTs was $4.92{\times}10^{-1}cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and 1.46V, respectively, whereas these values for the annealed TFTs were $1.49{\times}10^{-1}cm^2/V{\cdot}$ and 15.43V, respectively. It is believed that an increase in the surface roughness after an annealing treatment degrades the quality of the device. The transmittances of the IGZO thin films were approximately 80%. These results demonstrate that IGZO thin films are suitable for use as transparent thin film transistors (TTFTs).

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.1787-1790
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• 2006

An artificial retina using thin-film photodiodes (TFPDs) and thin-film transistors (TFTs) is proposed. The characteristics of a TFPD and TFTs are measured, and the circuits of the retina pixel and retina array are designed. It is confirmed that the artificial retina can achieve edge enhancement and control photo-sensitivity.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.1065-1066
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• 2008

Printed thin-film transistors (TFTs) have received profound interests as an alternative to their silicon counterparts for use in fabricating next-Gen microelectronics by virtue of projected low manufacturing cost and certain salient features (e.g., thin and lightweight characteristics, structural flexibility, etc.) that printed TFTs bring to device architecture. The economic advantages stem from engaging low-cost printing techniques (e.g., screen printing, gravure, flexography, etc.) for deposition and patterning in place of traditionally costly high-vacuum, high-temperature photolithographic processes. To render printing TFTs possible, solution processable materials are necessary.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.6-10
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• 2005

The dependence of hysteresis characteristics in low temperature poly-Si (LTPS) thin film transistors (TFTs) on the gate-source voltage (Vgs) or the drain-source voltage (Vds) bias is investigated and discussed. The hysteresis levels in both p-type and n-type LTPS TFTs are independent of Vds bias but increase as the sweep range of Vgs increases. It has been found that the hysteresis in both p-type and n-type LTPS TFTs originated from charge trapping and de-trapping in the channel region rather than at the source/drain edges.