Mobility enhancement of polycrystalline-Si thin-film transistors using nanowire channels by pattern-dependent metal-induced lateral crystallization

This work presents a method for enhancing the mobility of polycrystalline-Si (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) by pattern-dependent metal-induced-lateral-crystallization (PDMILC) using nanowire channels. Experimental results indicate that the field-effect mobility of PDMILC TFT was enhanced as the channel width decreased, because the lateral length of the poly-Si grains increased. The PDMILC poly-Si TFT with ten nanowire channels (M10) had the greatest field-effect mobility, 109.34 cm²/V s and the lowest subthreshold swing, 0.23 V/dec, at a gate length of 2 μm. The field-effect mobility also increased as the gate length in the M10 PDMILC poly-Si TFT device declined, because the number of poly-Si grain-boundary defects was reduced.