Scaling characteristics of depletion type, fully transparent amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistors and inverters following Ar plasma treatment

We fabricated depletion type, transparent amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) and inverters with an Ar plasma treatment and analyzed their scaling characteristics with channel lengths ranging from 2 to 100 mu m. The improvement of the field-effect mobility of a-IGZO TFTs is apparent only for short channel lengths. There is also an unexpected side effect of the Ar plasma treatment, which introduces back-channel interfacial states and induces a positive shift in the threshold voltage of a-IGZO TFTs. The resulting increase in the field-effect mobility and the positive shift in the threshold voltage of each TFT increase the differential gain up to 3 times and the positive shift in the transient point of the transparent inverters. (C) 2015 The Japan Society of Applied Physics