Role of Invisible Oxygen in the Trilayer Laminates of Ultrathin a-IGZO/SiOx/a-IGZO Films
Kaisha A. Toktarbaiuly O. Ainabayev A. Duisebayev T. Wang H. Nuraje N. Shvets I.V.
8 April 2025American Chemical Society
ACS Applied Electronic Materials
2025#7Issue 73153 - 3163 pp.
In this study, ultrathin multilayered films of IGZO/SiOx/a-IGZO were fabricated via radio frequency (RF) magnetron cosputtering, with the SiOx layer thickness systematically varied between 1 and 7 nm while maintaining a constant a-IGZO layer thickness. The effect of the SiOx thickness on the electrical properties of the films was thoroughly investigated. A significant deterioration in electrical performance was observed for SiOx layers up to 3 nm; however, an improvement was noted as the SiOx thickness increased to 7 nm. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis revealed that the oxygen structure and chemical composition within the multilayers remained unchanged. However, it confirmed that the ultrathin 2 nm thick SiOx (x ∼ 1.5) layer exhibited nonstoichiometric configurations. The contribution of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling was observed in multilayer films with varying thicknesses of SiOx. The presence of oxygen was found to play a critical role in modulating electron trap states within the SiOx layer, thereby mitigating the reduction in the charge carrier concentration in the films. By optimizing oxygen flow during deposition, we successfully eliminated the charge carrier drop in a-IGZO20 nm/SiOx(2 nm)/a-IGZO10 nm and a-IGZO20 nm/SiOx(3 nm)/a-IGZO10 nm films. Notably, the ultrathin SiOx layers in the a-IGZO/SiOx/a-IGZO films functioned as highly effective carrier suppressor layers, presenting a promising alternative to conventional doping approaches for controlling electrical performance.
amorphous transparent conducting oxide (a-TCO) , electronic materials , oxygen vacancies , thin-film transistor (TFT) , trilayer laminates , tunneling current , ultrathin a-IGZO & SiO2
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School of Physics, Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices ((CRANN)), Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, 2 D2, Ireland
Renewable Energy Laboratory, National Laboratory Astana (NLA), Nazarbayev University, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan
Physics Department, School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan
State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center for Nano Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shaanxi Joint Laboratory of Graphene (NPU), Xi’an, 710072, China
Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering, School of Engineering & Digital Science, Nazarbayev University, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan
School of Physics
Renewable Energy Laboratory
Physics Department
State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing
Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering
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