Humidity effect on electrical performance and bias stability of solution-processed In2O3 thin film transistor

Abstract

Relative humidity (RH) in storage environment has a great impact on the electrical performance of thin film transistors (TFTs), and the RH is critical for semiconductor manufacturing and device packaging. In this work, solution-processed indium oxide (In2O3) TFT is fabricated, and the electrical performance of the device is investigated after being exposed to various RH conditions. It is found that the threshold voltage (Vth) and the mobility of In2O3 TFT exhibit clear responses to the RH ranging from 23% to 85%. The inherent mechanism about the humidity effect on the electrical performance is elaborated, and this is due to the “donor effect” from the absorbed water molecules. In addition to the effect on Vth and mobility, RH also exhibits a significant effect on the electrical stability of the TFT. The experimental result indicates that the In2O3 TFT exposed to RH <50% exhibits excellent stability with an applied positive bias stressing for 2000s.

Keywords

• Relative humidity (RH)
• oxide thin film transistors
• electrical performance
• bias stability