A new process of fabricating inverted-staggered tri-layer thin-filmtransistors

A new method of fabricating a-Si:H TFT with etching-stop structure has been proposed. Only one plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is required in this new method and a PH₃/H₂ plasma treatment during the deposition has been used to form the TFT contact and thus saved another plasma deposition. With this method, a TFT of 500 Å active layer has been fabricated successfully. The drain current and saturation mobility of this device is 2.4×10^-7 A and 0.1 cm²/V sec, respectively, which is comparable to the conventional fabricating method. The plasma treatment will also form an additional leakage path on the TFT top surface and increase the TFT subthreshold slope. However, a current of less than 1 pA at V_G=-2.4 V can still be obtained. The possible mechanism of the contact formation by the plasma treatment is also discussed