NBTI Degradation in LTPS TFTs Under Mechanical Tensile Strain

Abstract

This letter investigates the negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation of p-channel low-temperature polycrystalline-silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs) under mechanical tensile stress. Experimental results reveal that the interface state density <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">it</sub> and grain boundary trap density <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">trap</sub> of tensile-strained LTPS TFTs are more pronounced than those of unstrained LTPS TFTs. Extracted density of states and conduction activation energy <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">E</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">a</sub> both show increases due to the strained Si-Si bonds, which implies that strained Si-Si bonds are able to react with dissociated H during NBTI stress. Therefore, NBTI degradation is more significant after tensile strain than in an unstrained condition.