Effect of Uniaxial Tensile Strain on Electrical Performance of Amorphous IGZO

TFTs and Circuits on Flexible Metal Foils

Shahrukh A. Khan, Po-Chin Kuo, Abbas lamshidi-Roudbari and Miltiadis Hatalis

Department of Electrical Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015
Phone: 610-758-3948 Email: sak406@lehighedu

Inexpensive and light-weight flexible displays and sensor electronics would be more rugged and
portable than the more conventional rigid substrate-based electronics. Till date, large area flexible
systems are enabled by a-Si:H or organics which suffer from low mobilities that limit their use in
driver electronics that require higher current drive. This is where oxide-semiconductor (amorphous
Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide, IGZO in particular) based thin-film transistors (TFTs) provide an
attractive alternative to silicon-based TFTs. Therefore, one needs to study the interdependence of
mechanical flexing and electrical performance of these devices as they find applications in flexible
large area based electronics. This study systematically investigates the influence of tensile strain on
IGZO TFTs and ring oscillators fabricated on flexible stainless steel substrates.

The fabricated IGZO TFTs are of a staggered bottom-gate, top-contact configuration. They are
fabricated by first depositing 150 nm of Mo by RF-sputtering onto a 100-/-lm thick, 150 mm in
diameter flexible stainless steel substrate as the gate layer and patterned by dry etching. The steel foil
is coated on both sides with 3 /-lm thick PECVD Si02 for electrical isolation as well as stress balance.
A 100 nm thick PECVD Si02 serves as the gate dielectric deposited at 300°C. RF sputtered 50 nm of
IGZO thin films form the active layer of the TFTs which is patterned by wet HCL etching. Finally, RF
sputtered Mo SID electrode completes the fabrication. Circuit integration is possible by patterning and
etching contact holes through Si02 to access the gate pads. Non-flexed TFTs have field effect mobility
2
of 15 cm IV.s, threshold voltage around 3 V and sub-threshold swing of 0.5 V/decade and on/off
7
current ratio exceeding 10 •

The IGZO TFTs are evaluated under uniaxial tensile strain by cylindrically bending them to
different radii ranging from 25 mm to 4 mm corresponding to tensile strain applied from 0.1% to 1%.
The bending direction is parallel to the source-drain current path. TFT transfer characteristics were
measured at each bending radius. There is drain current enhancement with increasing tensile strain up
to 0.78%. Tensile strain causes a slight increase in on-current and linear field effect mobility (except
at critical strain level exceeding the device failure level of 0.9%). An increase in loff (off current) and
gate leakage current, IL is observed for bending radius of 6 mm corresponding to an applied strain of
0.8%. At this strain level, the mobility starts to decrease as well. The threshold voltage, VT, decreases
with increasing tensile strain which is quite contrary to that observed in a-Si:H TFTs. This can be due
the increase of charge states at the gate dielectric as the strain level is increased without detrimentally
affecting the field-effect mobility. This trend is further verified by capacitance-voltage (C-V)
measurements of MIS (Metal/Si02IIGZO) structures under tensile strain.

The effect of tensile strain on dynamic characteristics of the IGZO TFTs are evaluated from 7 stage
ring oscillator circuits (LJoad=Ldrive=16 f.lID, WJoad=64 f.lID, Wdrive=256 /-lm), exhibiting oscillation
frequency of 85.7 KHz when non-flexed at a supply voltage of 15 V. Increasing longitudinal tensile
strain reduces the propagation delay per stage (oscillation at 88.6 KHz at 15 V) which can be directly
correlated to relative mobility increase with applied strain. The relative change of propagation delay
with strain reduces as the power supply voltage increases. The speed enhancement of IGZO TFT
based ring oscillator circuit is therefore dependent on supply voltage.

[1] H. Glescova et. aI., Journal ofNon-Crystalline Solids, v. 338-340, 2004, pp 732-735.
[2] F. Yuan et. aI., IEEE Transactions On Electron Devices, v. 53, n. 4, 2006, pp 724-729.
[3] P. Kuo et. aI., Journal ofDisplay Technology, v. 5, n. 6, 2009, pp 202-205

978-1-4244-7870-5/101$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 119

 Fig 1_ Schematic cross section of IGZO TFT on 100 IJm stainless
steel foil; the steel foil is coated with 3 IJm PECVD SiOz on each
side for isolation.

Fig 2. (a) Transfer characteristics of IGZO TFT at Vos=100 mV

(W/L=240lJm/4IJm) with tensile strain, (b) Output characteristics
of the same TFT with 0.6% strain; the drain current increases
with strain.

100 r-------�

1E-5
�NoStrain
0_6% TensileStrain .. . ........ ...
. ..
... .
� ... . .
..
2(a) 2(b) �...
. ••••••••••
••••• ••••••

: .. .. .....
1E-6 80 • ••
" ... . V V 5V
1E-7 .- " .
"... . . ... .
...
Gs- r =

If/
�
1: 1E-8
e ...

I:
:; TensileStrain /I to channel u'l
........... A......................
1E-9
<.J 'II
�NoStrain .

·········..tjv··:ij":·;v···········
_5
:!
C
1E-10 � 0_1%Strain
� 0_2%Strain
II • ..;:::::::
.
....
. as T

1E-11 � 0_4%Strain
20 !It., .-

\/"GS:::�::�:Hl:::::::::::
l:TIT:::m :::!:::::::::::::·�
-<>- 0_6%Strain
1E-12 -- 0_8%Strain
:r T

1E-13 O �----�----�
-10 10 20 o 10 15

Gate Bias ( V) Drian Voltage (V)

Electrical Properties of Discrete IGZO TFTs Under Strain

Eia.......1. Electrical properties of

discrete IGZO TFT with tensile
strain:
�On current, 1(1'1 (a)Evolution of TFT On-current
�Offfcurrent,I(Il
- Leakage current,IL (circles), Off-current (triangles)
and leakage current (squares)
with strain; the failure strain level
.-.-:::...-.-.�
.".".,� for IGZO TFTs is indicated at
.�-.--
On.....
Electrical Fai1Ur 0.9% of tensile strain.

�-- -'O:':. '-U 1E·13

0.0"-�-: 0'::- . 2 �-:'-. 0.4-�-:06'::-
": . 0,0 0.2
(b)Normalized field effect mobility
(1J/1J0) of IGZO TFTs with different
1.2 .------,
channel length with strain.
1.0 3(c) �
_NoStTain
--0- 0.4% Strain
1.0 ---6- 0.6%Strain
? J
;-0.9
E
t! 0.8 (c)Normalized threshold voltage
(VylVTO) of IGZO TFT (W/L =240/4)
�
� O.
�
� 0.8 with tensile strain.

�� ....-;f
.
0.7 � 0.' """""""'.-

� � (d)The shift in threshold voltage is

�0.2�---- verified by capacitance voltage
� 0.6
j 0.0 measurements of MIS structures
with increasing strain.
0.0 0.2 0.' W_1':-, �_�1O:-"'"-..':-'��-7�-:1O:----7:15:-"'"-:20�
PercentSb"ain ("I.) Gate BiasM

Effects on IGZO TFT based Ring Oscillators Under Strain

Fig 4. Characteristics of 7 stage

4(a) ____ NoSI .. i" 9 Supply Voltage 4(b) • IGZO ring oscillator under tensile

.�
---0--0.2% tensile strain ___ 6V
---6- 0.4% tensile strain ___ 18V strain:
-A.-22V
(a) Single stage propagation

"MMl]
�2J;V

�.&
•
delay decrease with supply
i".. •
voltage (oscillator output for Voo
=15 V shown as inset) and
40 " • .. •
------ applied strain,

/�
(b) Measured speed enhancement
of the same ring oscillator from
� 6V-26V of supply voltage under

°4 �--��-,:':2�-,:':.---20:':----2:'-.4� QI 0.3 Q4
various strain levels.

Supply Voltage IV) TensileStrain (%)

978-1-4244-7870-5/101$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 120