Stability and Gap States of Amorphous In-Ga-Zn-Ox Thin Film Transistors: Impact of Sputtering Configuration and Post-Annealing on Device Performance

Stability of amorphous In-Ga-Zn-Ox (a-IGZO) thin-film-transistors (TFTs) is studied from a viewpoint of gap states, associated with oxygen-related defects and structural disordering. The a-IGZO gap states are controlled through the film preparation by magnetron sputtering under two different configurations and post-annealing in oxygen atmosphere. The distribution of gap states is then evaluated from the subgap absorption spectrum, which is measured by a constant photocurrent measurement technique. With this known distribution, a-IGZO TFTs are fabricated, and the stability of the TFT performances is examined through the negative bias induced stability (NBIS) experiments. The results suggest that a negative threshold voltage shift, induced by NBIS, is improved by reducing the density of gap states, i.e., narrowing the gap state distribution. The reduction of gap states also contributes to the improvement of subthreshold swing.