Study of polycrystalline-Si thin-film transistors with different channel layer thickness at low bias voltage

A sub-micron poly-Si TFT device, operating at a drain bias of 1.5 V, has been studied with respect to channel layer thickness. A thinner channel layer may lead to better good gate control over the entire channel region, thus resulting in a lower threshold voltage. Similarly, under negative gate bias, a thinner channel layer would sustain larger vertical electric field. However, a thinned channel layer can reduce the source/drain bulk punch-through, thus causing a smaller channel region with relatively high electric field for carrier field emission. With using a low drain bias of 1.5 V, for the poly-Si TFT device with a thinner channel layer, the leakage current would be more effectively suppressed by the resultantly smaller channel region with relatively high electric field for carrier field emission. As a result, even for a gate length of 0.5 μm, the poly-Si TFT device with 20-nm channel layer can cause an off-state leakage of about 0.1 pA/μm at a drain bias of 1.5 V, and an on/off current ratio higher than 8 orders can be achieved.