An investigation of contact resistance between metal electrodes and amorphous gallium–indium–zinc oxide (a-GIZO) thin-film transistors

Abstract This paper reports our investigation of different source/drain (S/D) electrode materials in thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on an indium–gallium–zinc oxide (IGZO) semiconductor. Transfer length, contact resistance, channel conductance, and effective resistances between S/D electrodes and amorphous IGZO thin-film transistors were examined. Intrinsic TFT parameters were extracted by the transmission line method (TLM) using a series of TFTs with different channel lengths measured at a low drain voltage. The TFTs fabricated with Cu S/D electrodes showed the lowest contact resistance and transfer length indicating good ohmic characteristics, and good transfer characteristics with intrinsic field-effect mobility ( μ FE- i ) of 10.0 cm 2 /Vs.