Improving electrical performance and bias stability of HfInZnO-TFT with optimizing the channel thickness

RF magnetron sputtered HfInZnO film and atomic layer deposition (ALD) Al2O3 film were employed for thin film transistors (TFTs) as channel layer and gate insulator, respectively. To achieve HfInZnO-TFT with high performance and good bias stability, the thickness of HfInZnO active layer was optimized. The performance of HfInZnO-TFTs was found to be thickness dependent. As the HfInZnO active layer got thicker, the leakage current greatly increased from 1.73 × 10−12 to 2.54 × 10−8 A, the threshold voltage decreased from 7.4 to −4.7 V, while the subthreshold swing varied from 0.41 to 1.07 V/decade. Overall, the HfInZnO film showed superior performance, such as saturation mobility of 6.4 cm2/V s, threshold voltage of 4.2 V, subthreshold swing of 0.43 V/decade, on/off current ratio of 3 × 107 and Vth shift of 3.6 V under VGS = 10 V for 7200 s. The results demonstrate the possibility of fabricating TFTs using HfInZnO film as active layer and using ALD Al2O3 as gate insulator.