High performance thin film transistors with

cosputtered amorphous indium gallium zinc

oxide channel
Cite as: Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 113505 (2007); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2783961
Submitted: 02 July 2007 • Accepted: 22 August 2007 • Published Online: 11 September 2007

Jae Kyeong Jeong, Jong Han Jeong, Hui Won Yang, et al.

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Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 113505 (2007); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2783961 91, 113505

© 2007 American Institute of Physics.

 APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 91, 113505 共2007兲

High performance thin film transistors with cosputtered amorphous indium

gallium zinc oxide channel
Jae Kyeong Jeong,a兲 Jong Han Jeong, Hui Won Yang, Jin-Seong Park, Yeon-Gon Mo,b兲
and Hye Dong Kim
Corporate R and D Center, Samsung SDI Co., Ltd., 428-5, Gongse-Dong, Kiheung-Gu, Yongin-Si,
Gyeonggi-Do 449-902, Korea
共Received 2 July 2007; accepted 22 August 2007; published online 11 September 2007兲
The authors report the fabrication of high performance thin film transistors 共TFTs兲 with an
amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide 共a-IGZO兲 channel, which was deposited by cosputtering
using a dual IGZO and indium zinc oxide 共IZO兲 target. The effect of the indium content on the
device performance of the a-IGZO TFTs was investigated. At a relatively low IZO power of 400 W,
the field-effect mobility 共␮FE兲 and subthreshold gate swing 共S兲 of the a-IGZO TFTs were
dramatically improved to 19.3 cm2 / V s and 0.35 V/decade, respectively, compared to those
共11.2 cm2 / V s and 1.11 V/decade兲 for the TFTs with the a-IGZO channel 共reference sample兲
prepared using only the IGZO target. The enhancement in the subthreshold IDS-VGS characteristics
at an IZO power of 400 W compared to those of the reference sample was attributed to the reduction
of the interface trap density rather than the reduction of the bulk defects of the a-IGZO channel.
© 2007 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.2783961兴

Amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide 共a-IGZO兲 TFTs
offer an attractive alternative to poly-Si TFTs, because they
provide better uniformity in terms of their device character-
istics, including the threshold voltage and mobility, due to
their amorphous phase, and a high mobility of ⬎10 cm2 / V s
is attainable with these devices even in the amorphous
phase.1,2 The high mobility in the a-IGZO material is attrib-
uted to the electron transport by the conduction band, whose
minima in a-IGZO are composed of spatially spread nano-
second orbitals of post-transition cations 共In, Ga, and Zn兲
without directionality and the fact that their spherical sym-
metry makes the structural disordering in the amorphous
state a rather uncritical issue.
In this letter, we report the fabrication of high perfor-
mance TFTs with an a-IGZO film cosputtered using a dual
IGZO and indium zinc oxide 共IZO兲 target. The indium con-
tent incorporated in the a-IGZO film was varied by control-
ling the rf power of the IZO target. The effect of the indium
content on the performance of the fabricated a-IGZO TFTs is
described in detail.
MoW 共200 nm兲 sputtered on a SiO2/glass substrate with
a surface area of 70⫻ 70 mm2 was used as the gate elec-
trode. SiNx 共200 nm兲 film as a gate dielectric layer was de-
posited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at a
substrate temperature of 330 ° C. The flow rates of SiH4 and
NH3 were 200 and 2000 SCCM 共SCCM denotes cubic cen-
timeter per minute at STP兲, respectively. The chamber pres-
sure and rf power were 1.5 Torr and 1300 W, respectively.
The a-IGZO film with a thickness of 50 nm was grown by
cosputtering on the SiO2/glass substrate using polycrystalline
In2Ga2ZnO7 target and In2O3 – 10 wt % ZnO target at room
temperature. The cosputtering was carried out at a gas mix-
ing ratio of Ar/ O2 = 65/ 35 and a chamber pressure of
5 mTorr. The input rf power of the In2Ga2ZnO7 target was
fixed at 450 W, while that of the In2O3 – 10 wt % ZnO target
was varied from 300 to 700 W. IZO source and drain elec-
trodes 共200 nm兲 were formed by sputtering in the same
chamber at room temperature. The patterning of the channel
and source and drain electrodes was performed using a
shadow mask. Finally, the sample was subjected to thermal
annealing at 350 ° C for 1 h. The transfer characteristics of
the a-IGZO TFTs were measured at room temperature with
an Agilent 4156C precision semiconductor parameter
analyzer.
Figure 1 shows the schematic cross section of the
a-IGZO TFTs, which have an inverted staggered bottom gate
structure with a channel width 共W兲 of 1000 ␮m and a chan-
nel length 共L兲 of 150 ␮m. Figures 2共a兲 and 2共b兲 show the
representative transfer characteristics of the TFTs with the
a-IGZO channels deposited at rf IZO powers of 0 W 共refer-
ence sample兲 and 400 W, respectively. The threshold voltage
共VT,sat兲 was defined by the gate voltage, which induces a
drain current of L / W ⫻ 10 nA at a VDS of 5.1 V. The appar-
ent field-effect mobility induced by the transconductance at a
low drain voltage 共VDS 艋 1 V兲 is determined by
Lgm
␮FE = , 共1兲
WCiVDS
where Ci and gm are the gate capacitance per unit area and
the transconductance, respectively. From the transfer charac-

a兲
Electronic mail: jaekyeong.jeong@samsung.com FIG. 1. 共Color online兲 Schematic cross section of the IGZO TFTs, which
b兲
Electronic mail: ygmo@samsung.com have an inverted staggered bottom gate structure.

0003-6951/2007/91共11兲/113505/3/$23.00 91, 113505-1 © 2007 American Institute of Physics

113505-2 Jeong et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 113505 共2007兲

FIG. 3. 共Color online兲 共a兲 Dependence of the IZO rf power on the ␮FE and
S parameters of the TFTs with the cosputtered a-IGZO films. 共b兲 Depen-
dence of the IZO rf power on the VT,sat and Ioff parameters of the TFTs with
the cosputtered a-IGZO films. Ioff was determined by the drain current at
VGS = −10 V and VDS = 10 V.

0.35± 0.02 V/decade, respectively, without the deterioration

FIG. 2. 共Color online兲 Representative output characteristics of the TFT with
a-IGZO deposited at rf IZO powers of 共a兲 0 W 共reference sample兲 and 共b兲
400 W. The representative output characteristics of the TFT with a-IGZO
deposited at 共c兲 reference condition and 共d兲 400 W. The linear behavior in
the low VDS region in the output curves indicates the Ohmic contact between
the IZO and a-IGZO channels. The stability data as a function of stress time
under constant drain current of 3 ␮A were shown in the inset of 共b兲.
teristics, S can be extracted using the equation
dVGS
S= . 共2兲
d共log IDS兲
The density of the interface trap states 共Nt兲 at the
a-IGZO and dielectric interface can be calculated using the
following equation:3
Ci
Nt = 关S log共e兲/共kT/q兲 − 1兴 . 共3兲
q
N-channel conduction having a ␮FE parameter of
11.2± 2.0 cm2 / V s for the reference sample was observed,
which is typical of a-IGZO TFTs. The field-effect transistor
with the a-IGZO reference channel was normally off and
operated in accumulation mode 共VT,sat = 8.14± 0.36 V兲. The S
value and Ion/off ratio were 1.11± 0.06 V/decade and ⬃6.6
⫻ 106, respectively. A significant improvement of the device
performance was observed for the TFTs with the a-IGZO
channel cosputtered at an IZO rf power of 400 W. The ␮FE
and S values were enhanced to 19.3± 0.70 cm2 / V s and
of Ioff 共⬃1.7⫻ 1011 A兲. Also, the VT,sat value was shifted to
nearly zero voltage 共0.59 V兲, which is desirable for low
power consumption AMOLEDs. The reason for this im-
provement will be discussed below. Figures 2共c兲 and 2共d兲
show the representative output characteristics of the TFT
with the a-IGZO channel deposited at rf IZO powers of 0 W
共reference sample兲 and 400 W, respectively. It is noted that a
drain current of roughly 1 ␮A is required to manifest full
white gray color in the AMOLED device.4 The saturation
drain current was 1.45 ␮A at VGS = 8 V for the reference
TFT, while a value of 3.01 ␮A was achieved even at a low
VGS of 2 V for the cosputtered a-IGZO TFT, due to its high
mobility and low VT,sat 共⬃0.6 V兲, as shown in Figs. 2共c兲 and
2共d兲.
It is worthwhile to mention the stability of cosputtered
IGZO TFT. Stability of TFT with the a-IGZO channel de-
posited at 400 W was measured under the constant source-
drain current of 3 ␮A. Interestingly, the mobility and gate
swing were not degraded after the long time stress 共60 h兲;
only the threshold voltage was positively shifted by approxi-
mately 3.4 V, as shown in the inset of Fig. 2共b兲.
Figure 3共a兲 shows the dependence of the IZO rf
power on the ␮FE and S parameters of the TFTs with the
cosputtered a-IGZO films. As the indium content increased,
the ␮FE value increased up to an IZO rf power of
600 W 共24.0± 0.64 cm2 / V s兲 and dropped slightly to
21.7± 1.39 cm2 / V s at 700 W. In contrast, the VT,sat value of
the a-IGZO TFTs was gradually negatively shifted with in-
creasing indium content. Thus, the VT,sat value was
−12.1± 1.91 V for the TFTs with a-IGZO cosputtered at
700 W, indicating that the device operation changed from
accumulation to depletion mode. It has been reported that the
Hall mobility and net carrier density of a-IGZO films pre-

TABLE I. Indium, gallium, and zinc content of a-IGZO as a function of the IZO rf power. Also, the interface
trap density 共Nt兲 was extracted and summarized for each a-IGZO TFT. The atomic ratio of the IGZO film was
analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. The ratio of In/ 共In+ Ga+ Zn兲 increased monoto-
nously with increasing IZO rf power.

rf power
of IZO target 0W 300 W 400 W 600 W 700 W

In/ 共In+ Ga+ Zn兲 0.40 0.63 0.65 0.73 0.76

Ga/ 共In+ Ga+ Zn兲 0.43 0.26 0.23 0.16 0.13
Zn/ 共In+ Ga+ Zn兲 0.17 0.11 0.12 0.11 0.11
Nt 共1012 cm−2兲 3.2± 0.18 1.9± 0.06 0.91± 0.06 1.5± 0.03 1.8± 0.27
113505-3 Jeong et al.
TABLE II. Comparison of the various parameters including ␮FE, S, Ion/off ratio, VT,sat, and Nt for the three
samples. The standard deviations for each parameter were determined from the evaluation of six TFTs on one
sample.
␮FE
Sample ID 共cm2 / V s兲
Reference 共50 nm兲 11.2± 2.01
Cosputtered 共50 nm兲 19.3± 0.74
Reference 共40 nm兲/ cosputtered 共10 nm兲 15.3± 1.20
pared by pulsed laser deposition were dominantly deter-
mined by the content of In2O3 and increased up to
⬃40 cm2 / V s and ⬎1019 cm−3, respectively, at the maxi-
mum In2O3 fraction.5 The experimental results obtained
herein were theoretically validated by the recent ab initio
calculations which indicate that the In3+ cations in the
a-IZGO material primarily form an extended conduction
band minima by the percolation of the In 5s orbitals.6 There-
fore, the improvement in mobility can be attributed to the
increasing indium content and the consequent increase in the
carrier density which caused the threshold voltage to be
negatively shifted. This was also supported by the fact that
the leakage current rapidly increased under high power con-
ditions 共⬎600 W兲, as shown in Fig. 3共b兲. In fact, the con-
trollability of the net carrier density is a well-known critical
issue for In-rich a-IGZO or a-IZO materials 共net carrier den-
sity of ⬎1018 cm−3兲.5 The normally on behavior at zero gate
voltage, which is not desirable for the application of
AMOLEDs as a switching or driving device, was also re-
ported for In-rich a-IZO TFTs due to their rather high carrier
density 共⬃2.1⫻ 1017 cm−3兲.7
The slight deterioration of the ␮FE value observed at an
IZO rf power of 700 W can be explained by the sputtering
damage; the energetic ion bombardment at higher power
might cause the interface degradation of the underlying gate
dielectric. Moreover, the creation of deep levels by the ion
bombardment and incorporation of sputtering ions such as
Ar+ at increasing rf power might have an adverse effect on
the overall device characteristics.8–10 This speculation is con-
firmed by the fact that the gate swing or Nt values were
seriously degraded at a higher rf IZO power 共⬎600 W, see
Table I兲. The S value was 0.67± 0.09 V/decade at 700 W,
indicating that the energetic particle bombardment at high rf
power is responsible for the deterioration of the transconduc-
tance and subthreshold current region.
Next, we discuss the origin of the improvement in the
subthreshold gate swing for the a-IGZO TFT at an IZO rf
power of 400 W compared to that of the reference sample.
Basically, this can be attributed to either the reduced bulk
defect density of the a-IGZO semiconductor itself or the re-
duction of the Nt value at or near the interface between
a-IGZO and SiNx. Table II compares the device parameters
for the TFTs with the two-step deposited a-IGZO film, in
which a 10-nm-thick a-IGZO film was firstly grown by
cosputtering at an IZO rf power of 400 W and a 40-nm-thick
a-IGZO film was then deposited under the reference condi-
tions 共only IGZO sputtering兲. The S value of the TFTs with
Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 113505 共2007兲
S Ion/off VT,sat Nt
共V/decade兲 ratio 共V兲 共cm−2兲
1.12± 0.07 6.5⫻ 106 8.14± 0.36 2.9⫻ 1012
0.36± 0.02 1.5⫻ 107 0.59± 0.32 9.1⫻ 1011
0.36± 0.06 1.8⫻ 107 2.22± 0.49 9.1⫻ 1011
the bilayered a-GIZO channel is nearly identical to that of
the cosputtered a-IGZO TFT, indicating that the improve-
ment in the S value comes from the reduction of Nt rather
than that of the defect density of the a-IGZO itself.
Finally, it should be noted that the choice of gate dielec-
tric was also important for improving the transistor perfor-
mance. By using a bilayer of SiNx / SiOx, the field-effect mo-
bility and gate swing were improved from 11.2 cm2 / V s and
1.12 V/decade 共reference samples兲 to 15.8 cm2 / V s and
0.65 V/decade, respectively 共not shown兲. Therefore, the
combination of IGZO codeposition and bilayer gate dielec-
tric would result in further improvements of the device per-
formances including mobility and gate swing.
In summary, the competition between the enhancement
of the mobility by the incorporation of indium and the cre-
ation of Nt by energetic particle bombardment occurred dur-
ing the cosputtering of the IGZO and IZO targets. At a rela-
tively low IZO power of 400 W, the ␮FE and S parameters of
the a-IGZO TFTs were dramatically improved to
19.3 cm2 / V s and 0.35 V/decade, respectively. However, the
␮FE and S parameters were deteriorated at a high IZO rf
power of 700 W due to the acceleration of the energetic ion
bombardment. The enhancement in the subthreshold IDS-VGS
characteristics of the a-IGZO TFTs at an IZO power of
400 W compared to those of the reference sample was attrib-
uted to the reduction of the interface trap density rather than
the reduction of the bulk defects of the a-IGZO channel.
Therefore, it is concluded that interface engineering by
cosputtering during the initial growth of a-IGZO will play an
important role in achieving an excellent gate swing and high
mobility for the fabricated a-IGZO TFTs without any dete-
rioration of Ioff.
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