Electrical instability of InGaZnO thin-film transistors with and without titanium sub-oxide layer under light illumination

The electrical instability behaviors of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide thin-film transistors with and without titanium sub-oxide passivation layer were investigated under light illumination in this study. For the unpassivated IGZO TFT device, in contrast with the dark case, a noticeable increase of the sub-threshold swing was observed when under the illumination environment, which can be attributed to the generation of ionized oxygen vacancies within the α-IGZO active layer by high energy photons. For the passivated TFT device, the much smaller SS of ~70 mV/dec and high device mobility of >100 cm²/Vs at a drive voltage of 3 V with negligible degradation under light illumination are achieved due to the passivation effect of n-type titanium sub-oxide semiconductor, which may create potential application for high-performance display.