Light/negative bias stress instabilities in indium gallium zinc oxide thin film transistors explained by creation of a double donor

The analysis of current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics for amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide Thin film transistors as a function of active layer thickness shows that negative bias under illumination stress (NBIS) is quantitatively explained by creation of a bulk double donor, with a shallow singly ionized state epsilon(0/+) > E-C-0.073 eV and a deep doubly ionized state epsilon(++/+) < E-C-0.3 eV. The gap density of states, extracted from the capacitance-voltage curves, shows a broad peak between E-C-E = 0.3 eV and 1.0 eV, which increases in height with NBIS stress time and corresponds to the broadened transition energy between singly and doubly ionized states. We propose that the center responsible is an oxygen vacancy and that the presence of a stable singly ionized state, necessary to explain our experimental results, could be due to the defect environment provided by the amorphous network. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4752238]