No abstract

Top-gate staggered hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated over large-area glass substrates using a selective phosphorus-treatment (PT) of indium-tin-oxide (ITO) source/drain electrodes. The ohmic contact between a-Si:H and ITO had a specific contact resistivity of about 0.18 Ω·cm2. For a 100-µm channel length TFT, the source/drain series resistance contributes less than 5% of the total drain-to-source resistance. This contribution increases to about 25% for a 10-µm channel length TFT. Our study also indicated that the interface quality of a-Si:H/a-SiN x :H is amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiN x :H) and a-Si:H thickness independent and dependent, respectively. Effective interface state densities of about 1.5×1012 cm-2eV-1 and 3.2×1012 cm-2eV-1 were obtained for top-gate TFTs with a 1300 and 300 Å thick a-Si:H films, respectively. Channel conductance activation energy of about 0.1 eV was measured for this top-gate TFT with 300 Å a-Si:H.

The low frequency noise properties of organic thin film transistors are studied here as a function of frequency and bias. Various n-channel and p-channel devices were evaluated and found to exhibit 1/f-type of noise in the 1 Hz–10 kHz range. The drain current noise is found to vary proportionally with drain current. The noise level is comparable to that found in Si metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors within the operation region of the devices, owing to the smaller drain currents in organic transistors, although the intrinsic noise is considerably higher in the organic transistors. The viability of using the organic materials in low noise circuits is demonstrated by a ring oscillator.

We have analyzed the influence of the hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thickness on the electrical performances of top gate thin-film transistors (TFTs). We have observed that, when the a-Si:H thickness increases, the threshold voltage and the subthreshold slope decrease. The modification of the TFT apparent field-effect mobility has also been investigated: we have shown that it first increases with the a-Si:H thickness, and then decreases for thicker a-Si:H films. This change of electrical performances is most likely associated with both the variation of a-Si:H microstructure during the film depositions and the effect of parasitic source and drain series resistances. We have demonstrated that for a given TFT geometry, it is therefore possible to define an optimum a-Si:H thickness ensuring maximum TFT electrical performances, and that this optimum thickness increases significantly with the TFT channel length.

We present a method of extracting the field-effect mobility from the transfer characteristics of organic polymer thin-film transistors (OP-TFTs), in both the linear and saturation regimes, by accounting for the dependence of the mobility on the gate bias, which translates to a dependence on the accumulated density of majority charge carriers in the channel. This method is compared to the commonly used extraction methods, which are based on the standard MOSFET square-law drain current equations that do not account for the variation of mobility with the applied gate bias. We show that by using the standard MOSFET equations, the extracted field-effect mobility can be significantly overestimated. We also demonstrate the use of the proposed method to extract the field-effect mobility at different measurement temperatures and present the dependence of the extracted parameters on temperature.

No abstract

Active-matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs) are light-modulating devices that generate images by differentially transmitting a nearly uniform luminous field provided by a backlight. While emissive displays exhibit a quasi-Lambertian emission with almost constant contrast at off-normal viewing, the anisotropy of the electro-optic effect that controls light transmission in AMLCDs causes a pixel luminance that varies, sometimes strongly, with viewing angle. These variations are not identical for all gray levels and can eventually cause grayscale inversions. In this paper, we measured the luminance emission of a monochrome medical AMLCD, a medical cathode-ray tube monitor, and a color desktop AMLCD, using a collimated photopic probe positioned on a manual rotation arm, and a research radiometer with automatic readout. The probe measures luminance with a small acceptance angle and provides optical shielding from emissions at other viewing directions that contaminate the readings. We obtained luminance response curves versus angle in the vertical, horizontal and at 45 degrees diagonal directions. The display systems were calibrated to reflect the DICOM Part 3.14 standard grayscale display function (GDF) when measured using the manufacturer's probe and software tools. We analyzed the measurements at different viewing directions with respect to their departure from the GDF by computing the normalized contrast (deltaL/L) as a function of the DICOM just-noticeable difference index. Although cathode-ray tubes are known to be quasi-Lambertian emitters, the luminance at normal viewing is higher than the luminance observed at large angles. This decrease in luminance is however proportionally similar for all gray levels, resulting in a relatively flat contrast response for all angles. In addition to being more pronounced, the angular variation in AMLCDs does not follow the same profile at different intensities with the subsequent variation in the achieved display contrast. The changes due to off-normal viewing are substantial at large angles in the horizontal and vertical directions, and much worse in the diagonal viewing directions.

We have investigated the effects of illumination, both broadband and monochromatic, on the electrical performance of organic polymer thin-film transistors (OP-TFTs). In each case, providing the illumination is sufficiently absorbed by the organic polymer, the drain current of a device biased in the OFF-state is significantly increased. We have observed increases in the OFF-state drain current as large as several orders of magnitude depending on the intensity of the incident illumination. Whereas, the drain current of a device biased in the strong accumulation regime is relatively unaffected by the incident illumination. The illumination also serves to decrease the threshold voltage and increase the subthreshold slope, but has little effect on the field-effect mobility of the charge carriers. We explain these effects in terms of the photo-carrier generation in the channel region of the device due to the incident illumination. We have also studied how our OP-TFTs respond to the turn-on and turn-off of gate bias under illumination and to the turn-on and turn-off of illumination at certain gate biases.