Specific contact resistivity reduction in amorphous IGZO thin-film transistors through a TiN/IGTO heterogeneous interlayer.

Oxide semiconductors have gained significant attention in electronic device industry due to their high potential for emerging thin-film transistor (TFT) applications. However, electrical contact properties such as specific contact resistivity (ρ) and width-normalized contact resistance (RW) are significantly inferior in oxide TFTs compared to conventional silicon metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors. In this study, a multi-stack interlayer (IL) consisting of titanium nitride (TiN) and indium-gallium-tin-oxide (IGTO) is inserted between source/drain electrodes and amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO). The TiN is introduced to increase conductivity of the underlying layer, while IGTO acts as an n-layer. Our findings reveal IGTO thickness (t)-dependent electrical contact properties of IGZO TFT, where ρ and RW decrease as t increases to 8 nm. However, at t > 8 nm, they increase mainly due to IGTO crystallization-induced contact interface aggravation. Consequently, the IGZO TFTs with a TiN/IGTO (3/8 nm) IL reveal the lowest ρ and RW of 9.0 × 10 Ω·cm and 0.7 Ω·cm, significantly lower than 8.0 × 10 Ω·cm and 6.9 Ω·cm in the TFTs without the IL, respectively. This improved electrical contact properties increases field-effect mobility from 39.9 to 45.0 cm/Vs. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of this multi-stack IL approach in oxide TFTs.