Thickness Effects on the Activation Energy of Source-Drain Current in P and N Channel Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Transistors

We report activation energy measurements of the source-drain current of polysilicon thin film transistors (TFTs). We have shown earlier that measurements carried out on unhydrogenated TFTs can be explained by the presence of band tail states in addition to deep localized states. After hydrogenation, the density of band tail states is greatly reduced and the data can be fitted with only the deep states.In the present work we have studied both n and p channel TFTs. This was done by measuring both type of devices on the same wafer so that differences due to processing conditions could be ruled out. Both type of devices had intentionally undoped channels and were identical except for the n or p type source-drain regions. The thinner TFTs discussed in this work have a sharper drop in the activation energy than would be expected from idealized calculations. This sharp drop in activation energy is also an indication of a sharp subthreshold slope. This decrease in subthreshold slope (Volts/decade) is due to the complete depletion of the channel polysilicon, which leads to a rapid increase (or decrease) in the surface potential as a function of the gate voltage.