Improving the electrical properties of NILC poly-Si films using a gettering substrate

Abstract

Ni-metal-induced lateral crystallization (NILC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) has been employed to fabricate polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors. However, current crystallization technology often leads to Ni and NiSi2 precipitates being trapped, thus degrading the performance of the device. We proposed using a-Si-coated wafers as Ni-gettering substrates. After bonding the gettering substrate with the NILC poly-Si film both the Ni-metal impurity within the NILC poly-Si film and the leakage current were greatly reduced, thus increasing the ON/OFF current ratio.