Roles of Oxygen Interstitial Defects in Atomic-Layer Deposited InGaZnO Thin Films with Controlling the Cationic Compositions and Gate-Stack Processes for the Devices with Subμm Channel Lengths

ABSTRACT: Roles of oxygen interstitial defects located in the In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) thin films prepared by atomic layer deposition were investigated with controlling the cationic compositions and gate-stack process conditions. It was found from the spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis that the excess oxygens increased with increasing the In contents within the IGZO channels. While the device using the IGZO channel with an In/Ga ratio of 0.2 did not show marked differences with the variations in the oxidant types during the gate-stack formation, the device characteristics were severely deteriorated with increasing the In/Ga ratio to 1.4, when the Al2O3 gate insulator (GI) was prepared with the H2O oxidants (H2O-Al2O3) due to a higher amount of excess oxygen in the channel. Additionally, during the deposition process of the Aldoped ZnO (AZO) gate electrode (GE) replacing from the indium-tin oxide (ITO) GE, the thermal annealing effect at 180 degrees C facilitated the passivation of oxygen vacancy and the strengthening of metal-oxygen bonding, which could stabilize the TFT operations. From these results, the gate-stack structure employing O3-processed Al2O3 GI (O3-Al2O3) and AZO GE (OA) was suggested to be most suitable for the device using IGZO channel with a higher In content. On the other hand, the device employing H2O-Al2O3 GI and AZO GE exhibited larger negative shifts of threshold voltage (VTH) under positive-bias-temperature stress (PBTS) condition than the device employing O3- Al2O3 GI and ITO GE due to larger hydrogen contents within the gate stacks. Anomalous negative shifts of VTH were accelerated with increasing the In contents of the IGZO channel. When the channel length of the fabricated device were scaled down to submicrometer regime, the OA gate stacks successfully alleviated the short-channel effects.

Automated summary

The roles of oxygen interstitial defects in In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) thin films were investigated by controlling the cationic compositions and gate-stack process conditions. Excess oxygens were found to increase with higher In contents in the IGZO channels. Thermal annealing helped stabilize device operations and influenced negative shifts in threshold voltage.