• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.543-543
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• 2013

Thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on oxide semiconductors have been regarded as promising alternatives for conventional amorphous and polycrystalline silicon TFTs. Oxide TFTs have several advantages, such as low temperature processing, transparency and high field-effect mobility. Lots of oxide semiconductors for example ZnO, SnO2, In2O3, InZnO, ZnSnO, and InGaZnO etc. have been researched. Particularly, zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) is suitable for channel layer of oxide TFTs having a high mobility that Sn in ZTO can improve the carrier transport by overlapping orbital. However, some issues related to the ZTO TFT electrical performance still remain to be resolved, such as obtaining good electrical contact between source/drain (S/D) electrodes and active channel layer. In this study, the bottom-gate type ZTO TFTs with staggered structure were prepared. Thin films of ZTO (40 nm thick) were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering and performed at room temperature in an Ar atmosphere with an oxygen partial pressure of 10%. After annealing the thin films of ZTO at $400^{\circ}C$ or an hour, Cu, Mo, ITO and Ti electrodes were used for the S/D electrodes. Cu, Mo, ITO and Ti (200 nm thick) were also deposited by DC magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The channel layer and S/D electrodes were defined using a lift-off process which resulted in a fixed width W of 100 ${\mu}m$ and channel length L varied from 10 to 50 ${\mu}m$. The TFT source/drain series resistance, the intrinsic mobility (${\mu}i$), and intrinsic threshold voltage (Vi) were extracted by transmission line method (TLM) using a series of TFTs with different channel lengths. And the performances of ZTO TFTs were measured by using HP 4145B semiconductor analyzer. The results showed that the Cu S/D electrodes had a high intrinsic field effect mobility and a low effective contact resistance compared to other electrodes such as Mo, ITO and Ti.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.110.2-110.2
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• 2012

We reported on antireflective ZnSnO (ZTO)/Ag bilayer and ZTO/Ag/ZTO trilayer source/drain (S/D) electrodes for all-transparent ZTO channel based thin film transistors (TFTs). The ZTO/Ag bilayer is more transparent (83.71%) and effective source/drain (S/D) electrodes for the ZTO channel/Al2O3 gate dielectric/ITO gate electrode/glass structure than ZTO/Ag/ZTO trilayer because the bottom ZTO layer in the trilayer increasea contact resistance between S/D electrodes and ZTO channel layer and reduce the antireflection effect. The ZTO based all-transparent TFTs with ZTO/Ag bilayer S/D electrode showed a saturation mobility of 4.54cm2/Vs and switching property (1.31V/decade) comparable to TTFT with Ag S/D electrodes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.127-127
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• 2011

We investigate the transparent TFTs using a transparent ZnSnO3 (ZTO)/Ag/ZTO multilayer electrode as S/D electrodes with low resistivity of $3.24{\times}10^{-5}$ ohm-cm, and high transparency of 86.29% in ZTO based TFTs. The Transparent TFTs (TTFTs) are prepared on glass substrate coated 100 nm of ITO thin film. On atomic layer deposited $Al_2\;O_3$, 50 nm ZTO layer is deposited by RF magnetron sputtering through a shadow mask for channel layer using ZTO target with 1 : 1 molar ratio of ZnO : $SnO_2$. The power of 100W, the working pressure of 2mTorr, and the gas flow of Ar 20 sccm during the ZTO deposition. After channel layer deposition, a ZTO (35 nm)/Ag (12 nm)/ZTO(35 nm) multilayer is deposited by DC/RF magnetron sputtering to form transparent S/D electrodes which are patterned through the shadow mask. Devices are annealed in air at 300$^{\circ}C$ for 30 min following ZTO deposition. Using UV/Visible spectrometer, the optical transmittances of the TTFT using ZTO/Ag/ ZTO multilayer electrodes are compared with TFT using Mo electrode. The structural properties of ZTO based TTFT with ZTO/Ag/ZTO multilayer electrodes are analyzed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HREM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The transfer and output characterization of ZTO TTFTs are examined by a customized probe station with HP4145B system in are.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.62-64
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• 2015

We have investigated zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin films under various silicon ratios. ZTO TFTs were fabricated by solution processing with the bottom gate structure. Furthermore, annealing process was performed at different temperatures in various annealing conditions, such as air, vacuum and wet ambient. Completed fabrication of ZTO TFT, and the performance of TFT has been compared depending on the annealing conditions by measuring the transfer curve. In addition, structure in ZTO thin films has been investigated by X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) and Scanning electron microscope (SEM). It is confirmed that the electrical performance of ZTO TFTs are improved by adopting optimized annealing conditions. Optimized annealing condition has been found for obtaining high mobility.

• Electronic Materials Letters
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.669-677
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• 2018

In this work, the high ${\kappa}$ $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ films with a different Zr concentration have been deposited by atomic layer deposition, and the effect of Zr concentrations on the structure, chemical composition, surface morphology and dielectric properties of $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ films is analyzed by Atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and capacitance-frequency measurement. The effect of Zr concentrations of $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ gate insulator on the electrical property and stability under negative bias illumination stress (NBIS) or temperature stress (TS) of ZnSnO (ZTO) TFTs is firstly investigated. Under NBIS and TS, the much better stability of ZTO TFTs with $Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ film as a gate insulator is due to the suppression of oxygen vacancy in ZTO channel layer and the decreased trap states originating from the Zr atom permeation at the $ZTO/Zr_xAl_{1-x}O_y$ interface. It provides a new strategy to fabricate the low consumption and high stability ZTO TFTs for application.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.307.1-307.1
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• 2016

Amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin films are being widely studied for a variety electronic applications such as the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) in the field of photoelectric elements and thin film transistors (TFTs). Thin film transistors (TFTs) with transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (TAOS) represent a major advance in the field of thin film electronics. Examples of TAOS materials include zinc tin oxide (ZTO), indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), indium zinc oxide, and indium zinc tin oxide. Among them, ZTO has good optical and electrical properties (high transmittance and larger than 3eV band gap energy). Furthermore ZTO does not contain indium or gallium and is relatively inexpensive and non-toxic. In this study, ZTO thin films were formed by UHV RF magnetron co-sputter deposition on silicon substrates and sapphires. The films were deposited from ZnO and SnO2 target in an RF argon and oxygen plasma. The deposition condition of ZTO thin films were controlled by RF power and post anneal temperature using rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The deposited and annealed films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), ultraviolet and visible light (UV-VIS) spectrophotometer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2016

In this study, the effects of soft baking temperature on the solution derived ZTO (Zn-Sn-O) TFTs (thin-film transistors) as a In-free oxide semiconductor were investigated. In spite of the same hard baking at high temperature($600^{\circ}C$), the electrical properties of ZTO TFT was greatly changed by a small difference in soft baking temperature($180{\sim}250^{\circ}C$). The performance of TFT was deteriorated as the soft baking temperature increased. Therefore, it is important to remove the water-related defects well as organic impurities from the ZTO films during soft baking for fabrication of solution-derived high performance of TFTs.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.328-332
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• 2014

Thin film transistors (TFTs) with an amorphous silicon zinc tin oxide (a-2SZTO) channel layer have been fabricated using an RF magnetron sputtering system. The effect of the change of excitation electron on the variation of the total interfacial trap states of a-2SZTO systems was investigated depending on sputtering power, since the interfacial state could be changed by changing sputtering power. It is well known that Si can effectively reduce the generation of the oxygen vacancies. However, The a-2SZTO systems of ZTO doped with 2 wt% Si could be degraded because the Si peripheral electron belonging to a p-orbital affects the amorphous zinc tin oxide (a-ZTO) TFTs of the s-orbital overlap structure. We fabricated amorphous 2 wt% Si-doped ZnSnO (a-2SZTO) TFTs using an RF magnetron sputtering system. The a-2SZTO TFTs show an improvement of the electrical property with increasing power. The a-2SZTO TFTs fabricated at a power of 30 W showed many of the total interfacial trap states. The a-2SZTO TFTs at a power of 30 W showed poor electrical property. However, at 50 W power, the total interfacial trap states showed improvement. In addition, the improved total interfacial states affected the thermal stress of a-2SZTO TFTs. Therefore, a-2SZTO TFTs fabricated at 50 W power showed a relatively small shift of threshold voltage. Similarly, the activation energy of a-2SZTO TFTs fabricated at 50 W power exhibits a relatively large falling rate (0.0475 eV/V) with a relatively high activation energy, which means that the a-2SZTO TFTs fabricated at 50 W power has a relatively lower trap density than other power cases. As a result, the electrical characteristics of a-2SZTO TFTs fabricated at a sputtering power of 50 W are enhanced. The TFTs fabricated by rf sputter should be carefully optimized to provide better stability for a-2SZTO in terms of the sputtering power, which is closely related to the interfacial trap states.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1342_1342
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• 2009

Zinc tin oxide (ZTO) based thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated on glass substrate by using sol-gel method. The fabricated ZTO TFT had bottom gate and top contact structure with ZTO layer formed by spin coating from ZTO solution. The fabricated TFT showed field-effect mobility of about 2 - $4\;cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ with on/off current ratios >$10^7$, and threshold voltage of 2 V.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.216-220
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• 2017

The effect of electron beam (EB) irradiation on the electrical properties of Zn-Sn-O (ZTO) thin films fabricated using a sol-gel process was investigated. As the EB dose increased, the saturation mobility of ZTO thin film transistors (TFTs) was found to slightly decrease, and the subthreshold swing and on/off ratio degenerated. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of the O 1s core level showed that the relative area of oxygen vacancies ($V_O$) increased from 10.35 to 12.56 % as the EB dose increased from 0 to $7.5{\times}10^{16}electrons/cm^2$. Also, spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis showed that the optical band gap varied from 3.53 to 3.96 eV with increasing EB dose. From the results of the electrical property and XPS analyses of the ZTO TFTs, it was found that the electrical characteristic of the ZTO thin films changed from semiconductor to conductor with increasing EB dose. It is thought that the electrical property change is due to the formation of defect sites like oxygen vacancies.