Stable microcrystalline silicon thin-film transistors produced by the layer-by-layer technique

Microcrystalline siliconthin films prepared by the layer-by-layer technique in a standard radio-frequency glow discharge reactor were used as the active layer of top-gate thin-film transistors(TFTs). Crystalline fractions above 90% were achieved for silicon films as thin as 40 nm and resulted in TFTs with smaller threshold voltages than amorphous siliconTFTs, but similar field effect mobilities of around 0.6 cm2/V s. The most striking property of these microcrystalline silicontransistors was their high electrical stability when submitted to bias-stress tests. We suggest that the excellent stability of these TFTs, prepared in a conventional plasma reactor, is due to the stability of the μc-Si:H films. These TFTs can be used in applications that require high stability for which a-Si:HTFTs cannot be used, such as multiplexed row and column drivers in flat-panel display applications, and active matrix addressing of polymer light-emitting diodes.

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