Carrier Transport Across Grain Boundaries in Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Transistors

We established a model for investigating polycrystalline silicon（poly-Si） thin film transistors（TFTs）.The effect of grain boundaries（GBs） on the transfer characteristics of TFT was analyzed by considering the number and the width of grain boundaries in the channel region,and the dominant transport mechanism of carrier across grain boundaries was subsequently determined.It is shown that the thermionic emission（TE） is dominant in the subthreshold operating region of TFT regardless of the number and the width of grain boundary.To a poly-Si TFT model with a 1 nm-width grain boundary,in the linear region,thermionic emission is similar to that of tunneling（TU）,however,with increasing grain boundary width and number,tunneling becomes dominant.

Surface morphology and impurity distribution of electron beam recrystallized silicon films on low cost substrates for solar cell absorber

A line shaped electron beam recrystallised polycrystalline silicon film on the low cost substrate was investigated for the use of the solar cell absorber. The applied EB energy density strongly influences the surface morphology of the film system. Lower EB energy density results in droplet morphology and the rougher SiO2 capping layer due to the low fluidity. With the energy increasing, the capping layer becomes smooth and continuous and less and small pinholes form in the silicon film. Tungstendisilicide (WSi2) is formed at the interface tungsten/silicon but also at the grain boundaries of the silicon. Because of the fast melting and cooling of the silicon film, the eutectic of silicon and tungstendisilicide mainly forms at the grain boundary of the primary silicon dendrites. The SEM-EDX analysis shows that there are no chlorine and hydrogen in the area surrounding a pinhole after recrystallization because of outgassing during the solidification.

Total Ionizing Dose Radiation Effects in the P-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Transistors

The total ionizing dose radiation effects in the polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors are studied. Transfer characteristics, high-frequency capacitance-voltage curves and low-frequency noises (LFN) are measured before and after radiation. The experimental results show that threshold voltage and hole-field-effect mobility decrease, while sub-threshold swing and low-frequency noise increase with the increase of the total dose. The contributions of radiation induced interface states and oxide trapped charges to the shift of threshold voltage are also estimated. Furthermore, spatial distributions of oxide trapped charges before and after radiation are extracted based on the LFN measurements.

Selected area laser-crystallized polycrystalline silicon thin films by a pulsed Nd:YAG laser with 355 nm wavelength

Selected area laser-crystallized polycrystalline silicon （p-Si） thin films were prepared by the third harmonics （355 nm wavelength） generated by a solid-state pulsed Nd：YAG laser. Surface morphologies of 400 nm thick films after laser irradiation were analyzed. Raman spectra show that film crystallinity is improved with in- crease of laser energy. The optimum laser energy density is sensitive to the film thickness. The laser energy density for efficiently crystallizing amorphous silicon films is between 440-634 mJ/cm^2 for 300 nm thick films and between 777-993 mJ/cm^2 for 400 nm thick films. The optimized laser energy density is 634, 975 and 1571 mJ/cm^2 for 300, 400 and 500 nm thick films, respectively.

Organic Thin Film Field Effect Transistors with PMMA-GMA Gate Dielectric

We fabricate organic thin films using the copolymer of methyl methacrylate and glycidyl methacrylate （PMMA- GMA） as a gate dielectric with a simple top-contact structure. Copper phthalocyanine （CuPc） TFTs are fabricated and the influences of annealing on the performance are studied. The mobilities increase from 2.5 × 10^3 cm^2/Vs to 4.2 × 10^3 cm^2/Vs and threshold voltages decrease from -18 V to -10 V after annealing. The good performances of the devices approach those obtained with inorganic gate dielectric materials such as silicon dioxide under the same technical conditions. It is fully proven that PMMA-GMA is a competitive candidate as an excellent gate insulation layer.

Aluminum induced crystallization of strongly (111) oriented polycrystalline silicon thin film and nucleation analysis

A polycrystalline silicon thin film was fabricated on glass substrate by means of aluminum induced crystallization (AIC). Al and α-Si layers were deposited by magnetron sputtering respectively and annealed at 480°C for 1 h to realize layer exchange. The polycrystalline silicon thin film was continuous and strongly (111) oriented. By analyzing the structure variation of the oxidation membrane and lattice mismatch between γ-Al2O3 and Si, it was concluded that aluminum promoted the formation of (111) oriented silicon nucleus by controlling the orientation of γ-Al2O3, which was formed at the early stage of annealing.

Fabrication of Poly-Si Thin Film on Glass Substrate by Aluminum-induced Crystallization

Amorphous silicon （ a-Si ） thin films were deposited on glass substrate by PECVD, and polycrystalline silicon （ poly- Si ） thin films were prepared by aluminum- induced crystallization （ AlC ）. The effects of annealing temperature on the microstructure and morphology were investigated. The AlC poly-Si thin films were characterized by XRD, Raman and SEM. It is found that a-Si thin film has a amorphous structure after annealing at 400℃ for 20 min, a-Si films begin to crystallize after annealing at 450 ℃ for 20 min, and the crystallinity of a-Si thin films is enhanced obviously with the increment of annealing termperature.

Modeling of self-heating effects in polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors

An analytical DC model accounting for the self-heating effect of polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors（poly-Si TFTs） is presented.In deriving the model for the self-heating effect, the temperature dependence of the effective mobility is studied in detail.Based on the mobility model and a first order approximation, a closed-form analytical drain current model considering the self-heating effect is derived.Compared with the available experimental data, the proposed model, which includes the self-heating and kink effects, provides an accurate description of the output characteristics over the linear, the saturation, and the kink regimes.