Mechanical bending effect on the photo leakage currents characteristic of amorphous silicon thin film transistors

Abstract

The photo leakage current (I(PLC)) characteristic of a-Si:H TFTs under different bending strains has been studied. The larger I(PLC) of a-Si:H TFTs under the outward bending strain is due to larger conductivity of a-Si:H, stemmed from the shift up of Fermi level (E(F)). Experimental results show the I(PLC) of a-Si:H TFTs under the outward bending strain is larger than that of flattened and inward bending a-Si:H TFTs in the density of states (DOS) limited region, stemmed from the lower recombination centers present in outward bending a-Si:H material. Furthermore, the extracted smaller activity energy (E(a)) of a-Si:H TFTs under the outward bending strain also confirmed the shift of E(F). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.