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The Investigation of High Performance TFT by Thin Beam Directional X-stallization Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Chihwei Chao ,
Jiatien Peng ,
CW Cheng ,
Chunghung Chen ,
Brandon A. Turk  and
Bernd Burfeindt
Chihwei Chao
Affiliation:
jeffchao@auo.com, AU Optronics, RPA, No.1, Lising 2nd Rd., City, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 300, Taiwan
Jiatien Peng
Affiliation:
jtpeng@auo.com, AU Optronics, RPA, No.1, Lising 2nd Rd., City, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 300, Taiwan
CW Cheng
Affiliation:
cwcheng@auo.com, AU Optronics, RPA, No.1, Lising 2nd Rd., City, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 300, Taiwan
Chunghung Chen
Affiliation:
ChungHungChen@auo.com, AU Optronics, RPA, No.1, Lising 2nd Rd., City, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 300, Taiwan
Brandon A. Turk
Affiliation:
Brandon_Turk@tcz.com, TCZ GmbH, San Diego, California, 92127, American Samoa
Bernd Burfeindt
Affiliation:
Bernd_Burfeindt@tcz.com, TCZ GmbH, San Diego, California, 92127, American Samoa
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Abstract

Thin-beam directional X'tallization (TDX) is a low-temperature-substrate compatible crystallization method that can form directionally solidified poly-si films directly on glass substrates. Without using a mask, extremely long uniformly-spaced poly-Si grains can be formed by TDX. In this paper, we have investigated the influence of laser energy and scan pitch on the properties of the resulting poly-Si films. Grain size and surface morphology of TDX-processed poly-Si films were observed by SEM and AFM. The AFM results demonstrate that, due to the lateral growth phenomenon, TDX poly-Si films are much smoother than films produced by the current industry standard method, Excimer Laser Annealing (ELA). The breakdown of the TDX method is also discussed in this paper. When the laser scan pitch is larger than the lateral growth length that is characteristic of a given poly-Si film and beam property combination, a discontinuous poly-Si film is formed with vertical protrusions and grain boundaries occurring perpendicular to the scan direction. Poly-Si films with vertical protrusions and grain boundaries perpendicular to the direction of current flow will degrade the resulting thin-film transistor (TFT) performance.

Keywords

crystal growthpolycrystallaser annealing
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 910: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin-Film Silicon Science and Technology – 2006 , 2006 , 0910-A15-04
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2006

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