The electronic structure within the mobility gap of transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors

Transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors are a relatively new class of materials which show significant promise for electronic device applications. The electron mobility in these materials is at least ten times greater than that of the current dominant material for thin-film transistors: amorphous silicon. The density of states within the gap of a semiconductor largely determines the characteristics of a device fabricated from it. Thus, a fundamental understanding of the electronic structure within the mobility gap of amorphous oxides is crucial to fully developing technologies based around them. Amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) were investigated in order to determine this sub-gap structure. Junction-capacitance based methods including admittance spectroscopy and drive level capacitance profiling (DLCP) were used to find the free carrier and deep defect densities. Defects located near insulator-semiconductor interfaces were commonly observed and strongly depended on fabrication conditions. Transient photocapacitance spectroscopy (TPC) indicated broad valence band-tails for both the ZTO and IGZO samples, characterized by Urbach energies of 110±20 meV. These large band-tail widths imply that significant structural disorder exists in the atomic lattice of these materials. While such broad band-tails generally correlate with poor electronic transport properties, the density of states near the conduction band is more important for devices such as transistors. The TPC spectra also revealed an optically active defect located at the insulator-semiconductor junction. Space-charge-limited current (SCLC) measurements were attempted in order to deduce the density of states near the conduction band. While the SCLC results were promising, their interpretation was too ambiguous to obtain a detailed picture of the electronic state distribution. Another technique, modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (MPC), was then employed for this purpose. Using this method narrow conduction band-tails were determined for the ZTO samples with Urbach energies near 10 meV. Thus, by combining the results of the DLCP, TPC and MPC measurements, a quite complete picture of the density of states within the mobility gap of these amorphous oxides has emerged. The relationship of this state distribution to transistor performance is discussed as well as to the future development of device applications of these materials.