Temperature Dependent Characteristics of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon thin film Transistors

Abstract

The characteristics of inverted staggered hydrogenated amorphous silicon/silicon nitride (a-Si:H/a-SiN_x:H) thin film transistors (TFTs) are reported between 80 K and 420 K. The TFTs are found to have three distinct transport regimes. Between 80 K to approximately 260 K, the transport in the TFT channel is dominated by electrons hopping between localized gap states of a-Si:H and is analyzed using Mott’s theory of variable- range hopping. As the tem-perature is increased above ∼260 K the current becomes thermally activated with an activation energy which depends on the gate voltage. The effective field effect mobility, as determined from the TFT characteristics in saturation, is activated in this regime, with an activation energy 0.10 to 0.15 eV. The various activation energies are found to be sensitive to annealing which can be explained by a reduction in deep and shallow states in the a-Si:H active layer. When operated above ∼360 K the TFTs become unstable due to rapid changes in threshold voltage under the applied gate field. The behavior of the threshold voltage is described over the entire temperature range and possible mechanisms are discussed.