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In this study, we measured the low-temperature resistivity of amorphous two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) indium-zinc oxide, indium-gallium-zinc oxide, and indium-tin-zinc oxide films with a wide range of carrier densities. To determine their critical characteristics at the metal-insulator transition (MIT), we used the Ioffe-Regel criterion. We found that the MIT occurs in a narrow range between kFℓ=0.13 and kFℓ=0.25, where kF and ℓ are the Fermi wave number and electron mean free path, respectively. For films in the insulating region, we analyzed ρ(T) using a procedure proposed by Zabrodskii and Zinov'eva. This analysis confirmed the occurrence of Mott and Efros-Shklovskii (ES) variable-range hopping. The materials studied show crossover behavior from exp(TMott/T)1/4 or exp(TMott/T)1/3 for Mott hopping conduction to exp(TES/T)1/2 for ES hopping conduction with decreasing temperature. For both 2D and 3D materials, we found that the relationship between TMott and TES satisfies TES ∝ TMott2/3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous work, we reported the high field effect mobility of ZnO-doped In2O3 (IZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) irradiated by excimer laser annealing (ELA) [M. Fujii et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 122107 (2013)]. However, a deeper understanding of the effect of ELA on the IZO film characteristics based on crystallinity, carrier concentrations, and optical properties is needed to control localized carrier concentrations for fabricating self-aligned structures in the same oxide film and to adequately explain the physical characteristics. In the case of as-deposited IZO film used as the channel, a high carrier concentration due to a high density of oxygen vacancies was observed; such a film does not show the required TFT characteristics but can act as a conductive film. We achieved a decrease in the carrier concentration of IZO films by crystallization using ELA. This means that ELA can form localized conductive or semi-conductive areas on the IZO film. We confirmed that the reason for the carrier concentration decrease was the decrease of oxygen-deficient regions and film crystallization. The annealed IZO films showed nano-crystalline phase, and the temperature at the substrate was substantially less than the temperature limit for flexible films such as plastic, which is 50°C. This paves the way for the formation of self-aligned structures and separately formed conductive and semi-conductive regions in the same oxide film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degradation caused by Joule heating of transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors (TFTs) is an important issue for display technology. Deep understanding of the mechanism of self-heating degradation generated by driving pulse voltage will pave the way for the development of highly reliable flexible displays. In this work, by using a pseudo interval measurement method, we examined the relationship of the highest and the lowest heating temperature in pulse 1 cycle and frequency. These self-heating converged to a constant temperature under pulse voltage applied at 1 kHz. Moreover, the long-term reliability under positive-bias stress voltage at 1 kHz of low converged temperature condition was improved relative to that of the stress voltage at 10 Hz of dynamic temperature change condition. We discussed the degradation mechanism of oxide TFTs generated by pulse voltage, and clarified that the degradation was accelerated by thermionic emission which occurred at low frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents the spatial distribution of electrical characteristics of amorphous indium-tin-zinc oxide film (a-ITZO), and how they depend on the magnetron sputtering conditions using O2, H2O, and N2O as the reactive gases. Experimental results show that the electrical properties of the N2O incorporated a-ITZO film has a weak dependence on the deposition location, which cannot be explained by the bombardment effect of high energy particles, and may be attributed to the difference in the spatial distribution of both the amount and the activity of the reactive gas reaching the substrate surface. The measurement for the performance of a-ITZO thin film transistor (TFT) also suggests that the electrical performance and device uniformity of a-ITZO TFTs can be improved significantly by the N2O introduction into the deposition process, where the field mobility reach to 30.8 cm² V¹ s-1, which is approximately two times higher than that of the amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide TFT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]