Application of Flash Lamp Annealing on Nitrogen-Doped Amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinc-Oxide Thin Film Transistors

Abstract

Amorphous nitrogenated indium-gallium-zinc oxide (a-IGZO:N) thin films were deposited on highly doped silicon (n+Si) wafer substrates and heat-treated by millisecond flash lamp annealing (FLA) at different preheating temperatures to enhance the electrical characteristics of oxynitride thin film transistors (TFTs). A one-dimensional conduction/radiation heat transfer simulation was conducted to predict the temperature fields in the Si substrate, which indicated that the film temperatures during FLA instantaneously rose above 700 • C. The electrical characteristics of the a-IGZO:N TFTs were compared with those produced by conventional furnace annealing of one hour. As a result of the FLA process, a remarkable improvement in the TFT device performance was observed in terms of the electrical output characteristics and transfer curves of the a-IGZO:N TFTs. Morphological analyses were conducted using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and field emission scanning electron microscopy, indicating the possibility of partial crystallization of the a-IGZO:N channel layers under high-temperature annealing conditions, but the best TFT performance was found for the amorphous phase of IGZO:N.

A review on intense pulsed light process as post-treatment for metal oxide thin films and nanostructures for device application

“…It can be concluded that the nitrogen-related bonding state in the ZnON TFT has a great influence on the properties of the TFT device. Also, Nitrogenated a-IGZO (a-IGZO:N) thin film was deposited on SiO 2 /Si wafer using DC sputtering followed by an IPL annealing [24]. A preheating step using a plate-heater was conducted to improve the efficiency of the IPL annealing process.…”

“…The IPL post-treatment process has a variety of advantages. First, it can be applied to various types of functional materials such as metals [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], semiconductors [19][20][21][22][23][24], and dielectrics [25][26][27][28] due to wide wavelength characteristics. Each material has its own light absorption, followed by heat emission, characteristics depending on the wavelength.…”