Appearance of Single-Crystalline Properties in Fine-Patterned Si Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) by Solid Phase Crystallization (SPC)

Abstract

Uniformity of thin film transistor (TFT) characteristics was evaluated by varying the channel size. As channel length decreased and width fell below 1 µm, uniformity was degraded drastically. A few samples showed high-performance characteristics such as sharp gate voltage swing below 100 mV/dec and high mobility as high as 100 cm 2 /V·s near room temperature. Upon evaluation of their temperature dependence, the conduction mechanism showed not polycrystalline but single-crystal-like properties in the lattice scattering. The improved TFTs are thought to have been formed in grain boundary-free crystal grains.