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In this paper, the opposite impacts of N2O plasma surface treatment on the n- and p-channel low-temperature poly-Si thin-film transistors (LTPS-TFTs) with HfO2 gate dielectric are investigated. Significant performance improvement of n-channel LTPS-TFT by N2O plasma surface treatment is observed, including threshold voltage reduction \Delta V\mathrm {\mathbf {TH}}\sim -0.57 V, 1.55× higher transconductance G\mathit {m} , and 1.82× higher driving current I{\rm{drv}} . However, p-channel LTPS-TFT shows serious performance degradation after N2O plasma surface treatment, including threshold voltage increase \Delta V\mathrm {\mathbf {TH}}~\sim -0.99 V, transconductance G\mathit {m} reduction, and driving current I\mathrm {\mathbf {drv}} degradation. The difference of the two mechanisms of N2O plasma surface treatment, namely, plasma induced interfacial layer (PIL) growth effect and trap passivation effect on poly-Si, is elaborated by a process of the PIL removal after the PIL growth. As a result, the trap passivation effect benefits both n- and p-channel LTPS-TFTs. The PIL growth effect shows the opposite impacts on the n- and p-channel LTPS-TFTs, that benefits n-channel LTPS-TFT and degrades p-channel LTPS-TFT seriously. Therefore, the negative impacts of N2O plasma surface treatment on the p-channel LTPS-TFTs can be eliminated by a PIL removal step in the process. These results would be critical for the applications of system-on-panel and 3-D integrated circuit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]