Amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) with a coplanar structure were fabricated to investigate the feasibility of their potential application in large size organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Drain currents, used as functions of the gate voltages for the TFTs, showed the output currents had slight differences in the saturation region, just as the output currents of the etch stopper TFTs did. The maximum difference in the threshold voltages of the In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) TFTs was as small as approximately 0.57 V. After the application of a positive bias voltage stress for 50,000 s, the values of the threshold voltage of the coplanar structure TFTs were only slightly shifted, by 0.18 V, indicative of their stability. The coplanar structure TFTs were embedded in OLEDs and exhibited a maximum luminance as large as 500 nits, and their color gamut satisfied 99 % of the digital cinema initiatives, confirming their suitability for large size and high resolution OLEDs. Further, the image density of large-size OLEDs embedded with the coplanar structure TFTs was significantly enhanced compared with OLEDs embedded with conventional TFTs.

The effects of fast neutron irradiation on the electrical and optical properties of Li (3 at%) doped ZnSnO (ZTO) thin films fabricated using a sol-gel process are investigated. From the results of Li-ZTO TFT characteristics according to change of neutron irradiation time, the saturation mobility is found to increase and threshold voltage values shift to a negative direction from 1,000 s neutron irradiation time. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of the O 1s core level shows that the relative area of oxygen vacancies is almost unchanged with different irradiation times. From the results of band alignment, it is confirmed that, due to the increase of electron carrier concentration, the Fermi level (EF) of the sample irradiated for 1,000 s is located at the position closest to the conduction band minimum. The increase in electron concentration is considered by looking at the shallow band edge state under the conduction band edge formed by fast neutron irradiation of more than 1,000 s.

The effects of electron beam(EB) irradiation on the electrical and optical properties of InGaZnO(IGZO) thin films fabricated using a sol-gel process were investigated. As the EB dose increased, the electrical characteristic of the IGZO TFTs changed from semiconductor to conductor, and the threshold voltage values shifted to the negative direction. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of the O 1s core level showed that the relative area of oxygen vacancies increased from 14.68 to 19.08 % as the EB dose increased from 0 to 1.5 × 1016 electrons/cm2. In addition, spectroscopic ellipsometer analysis showed that the optical band gap varied from 3.39 to 3.46 eV with increasing EB dose. From the result of band alignment, it was confirmed that the Fermi level(EF) of the sample irradiated with 1.5 × 1016 electrons/cm2 was located at the closest position to the conduction band minimum(CBM) due to the increase of electron carrier concentration

The effect of electron beam (EB) irradiation on the electrical properties of Zn-Sn-O (ZTO) thin films fabricated using a sol-gel process was investigated. As the EB dose increased, the saturation mobility of ZTO thin film transistors (TFTs) was found to slightly decrease, and the subthreshold swing and on/off ratio degenerated. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of the O 1s core level showed that the relative area of oxygen vacancies (VO) increased from 10.35 to 12.56 % as the EB dose increased from 0 to 7.5 × 1016 electrons/cm2. Also, spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis showed that the optical band gap varied from 3.53 to 3.96 eV with increasing EB dose. From the results of the electrical property and XPS analyses of the ZTO TFTs, it was found that the electrical characteristic of the ZTO thin films changed from semiconductor to conductor with increasing EB dose. It is thought that the electrical property change is due to the formation of defect sites like oxygen vacancies.

Herein, we describe the effect of the cooling-off condition of a solution-processed 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)-pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) film on its molecular distribution and the resultant electrical properties. Since the solvent in a TIPS-pentacene droplet gradually evaporates from the rim to the center exhibiting a radial form of solute, for a quenched case, domains of the TIPS-pentacene film are aboriginally spread showing original features of radial shape due to suppressed molecular rearrangement during the momentary cooling period. For the slowly cooled case, however, TIPS-pentacene molecules are randomly rearranged during the long cooling period. As a result, in the lopsided electrodes structure proposed in this work, the charge transport generates more effectively under the case for radial distribution induced by the quenching technique. It was found that the molecular redistribution during the cooling-period plays an important role on the magnitude of the mobility in a solution-processed organic transistor. This work provides at least a scientific basis between the molecular distribution and electrical properties in solution-processed organic devices.

Amorphous (a-Si) films were epitaxially crystallized on a very thin large-grained poly-Si seed layer by a silicide-enhanced rapid thermal annealing (SERTA) process. The poly-Si seed layer contained a small amount of nickel silicide whichcan enhance crystallization of the upper layer of the a-Si film at lower temperature. A 5-nm thick poly-Si seed layer was thenprepared by the crystallization of an a-Si film using the vapor-induced crystallization process in a NiCl2 environment. Afterremoving surface oxide on the seed layer, a 45-nm thick a-Si film was deposited on the poly-Si seed layer by hot-wire chemicalvapor deposition at 200oC. The epitaxial crystallization of the top a-Si layer was performed by the rapid thermal annealing(RTA) process at 730oC for 5 min in Ar as an ambient atmosphere. Considering the needle-like grains as well as thecrystallization temperature of the top layer as produced by the SERTA process, it was thought that the top a-Si layer wasepitaxially crystallized with the help of NiSi2 precipitates that originated from the poly-Si seed layer. The crystallinity of theSERTA processed poly-Si thin films was better than the other crystallization process, due to the high-temperature RTA process.The Ni concentration in the poly-Si film fabricated by the SERTA process was reduced to 1×1018cm−3. The maximum field-effect mobility and substrate swing of the p-channel poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) using the poly-Si film prepared by theSERTA process were 85cm2/V·s and 1.23V/decade at Vds=−3V, respectively. The off current was little increased underreverse bias from 1.0×10−11 A. Our results showed that the SERTA process is a promising technology for high quality poly-Si film, which enables the fabrication of high mobility TFTs. In addition, it is expected that poly-Si TFTs with low leakagecurrent can be fabricated with more precise experiments.

To obtain the transistor with ambipolar transfer characteristics, IGZO/SiOC thin film transistor was prepared on SiOC with various polarities as a gate insulator. The interface between a channel and insulator showed the Ohmic and Schottky contacts in the bias field of -5V ~ +5V. These contact characteristics depended on the polarities of SiOC gate insulators. The transfer characteristics of TFTs were observed the Ohmic contact on SiOC with polarity, but Schottky contact on SiOC with low polarity. The IGZO/SiOC thin film transistor with a Schottky contact in a short range bias electric field exhibited ambipolar transfer characteristics, but that with Ohmic contact in a short range electric field showed unipolar characteristics by the trapping phenomenon due to the trapped ionized defect formation.

Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) thin films were deposited onto 300 nm-thick oxidized Si substrates and glass substrates by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of IGZO targets at room temperature. FESEM and XRD analyses indicate that non-annealed and annealed IGZO thin films exhibit an amorphous structure. To investigate the effect of an annealing treatment, the films were thermally treated at 300˚C for 1hr in air. The IGZO TFTs structure was a bottom-gate type in which electrodes were deposited by the DC magnetron sputtering of Ti and Au targets at room temperature. The non-annealed and annealed IGZO TFTs exhibit an Ion/Ioff ratio of more than 105. The saturation mobility and threshold voltage of nonannealed IGZO TFTs was 4.92×10-1cm2/V·s and 1.46V, respectively, whereas these values for the annealed TFTs were 1.49×10-1cm2/V· and 15.43V, respectively. It is believed that an increase in the surface roughness after an annealing treatment degrades the quality of the device. The transmittances of the IGZO thin films were approximately 80%. These results demonstrate that IGZO thin films are suitable for use as transparent thin film transistors (TTFTs).

Electrical properties of multi-channel metal-induced unilaterally precrystallized polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistor (MIUP poly-Si TFT) devices and circuits were investigated. Although their structure was integrated into small area, reducing annealing process time for fuller crystallization than that of conventional crystal filtered MIUP poly-Si TFTs, the multi-channel MIUP poly-Si TFTs showed the effect of crystal filtering. The multi-channel MIUP poly-Si TFTs showed a higher carrier mobility of more than 1.5 times that of the conventional MIUP poly-Si TFTs. Moreover, PMOS inverters consisting of the multi-channel MIUP poly-Si TFTs showed high dynamic performance compared with inverters consisting of the conventional MIUP poly-Si TFTs.

Organic semiconductors based on conjugated thiophene oligomer have great potential to be utilized as an active layer for electronic and optoelectronic devices. In this study, a conjugated oligomer such as α-sexithiophene (α-6T) thin films was prepared by the Organic Molecular Beam Deposition (OMBD), and various electrode materials were also deposited by a simple vacuum evaporation, respectively. Those films were photolithographically patterned for the electrical measurements. Electrical charact-erization of the thin film transistor with various channel length were executed and the field effect mobility of these thin film transistors were also calculated by the formula using the experimental data.