Plasma hydrogenation of metal-induced laterally crystallized thin film transistors

The device characteristics of conventional metal-induced laterally crystall ized thin film transistors (MILC-TFT's) are adversely affected by the exist ence of the continuous grain boundaries in the depletion regions of the met allurgical source and drain junctions. It has been shown that by introducin g an extra lithographic masking step, the detrimental effects can be elimin ated by separating the grain boundaries from the junction depletion regions , In this work, it is demonstrated that the traps in these grain boundaries can also be efficiently passivated using simple plasma hydrogenation, resu lting in simultaneous improvements in the threshold voltage, the subthresho ld slope, the mobility, the drain breakdown voltage, and the leakage curren t.