The hysteresis and off-current of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide thin film transistors with various active layer thicknesses under the light illumination

• Main Authors: Soo-Yeon Lee, Seung-Hee Kuk, Moon-Kyu Song, Min-Koo Han
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dark states; Hysteresis; Lighting; Logic gates; Photonic band gap; Physics; Thin film transistors

We investigated the photo-induced hysteresis and off-current (I off ) of amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) TFT, of which the active layer thickeness varies from 400 Å to 700 Å, under 400 nm wavelength illumination. As the active layer thicknesses are increased, the hysteresis and off-current under the light illumination increases. Because the photo-induced holes in the active layer contribute to the increase in the ionized oxygen vacancy at the interface, the hysteresis phenomenon is observed under 400 nm wavelength light illumination. When the transfer curve was measured under the reverse sweep (from V GS = 20 V to V GS = -20 V), I off was increased and independent on V GS in the off-region. Due to wide band gap of IGZO (~3 eV), the photo-induced hole cannot cross the barrier between the valence band of IGZO and source/drain. Increase of I off might be caused by the photo-induced electrons at the back side of the active layer. When the active layer thickness increases from 400 Å to 500 Å, I off was barely changed, while it is increases linearly when the active layer thickness increases from 500 Å to 700 Å. In our device, the debye length of IGZO might be about 500 Å, so that the photo-induced electrons can contribute to I off even though it is under the off-region.