The present application claims priority of Chinese Patent Application No. 201910488469.7 filed on Jun. 5, 2019, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety as part of the present disclosure.
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a thin film transistor and a manufacturing method of the thin film transistor, and an electronic device.
Thin film transistors (TFTs) are important components of some electronic devices. For example, the thin film transistors are switching elements of pixel circuits in active display devices. Active layers which are important structures in the thin film transistors are made of semiconductor materials, and the active layers can generate carriers for conduction under the control of gate electrodes. In recent years, one-dimensional semiconductor nano materials have been used in the thin film transistors due to their excellent electrical properties.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a thin film transistor, and the thin film transistor comprises: a base substrate, and a gate electrode, a gate insulation layer, an active layer, a first electrode and a second electrode which are arranged on the base substrate, in which a material of the active layer is a one-dimensional semiconductor nano material, and the active layer comprises a first electrode region, a second electrode region, a first channel region, and a second channel region; the first electrode region and the second electrode region are in contact with the first electrode and the second electrode respectively, the first channel region is directly connected with the first channel region and the second channel region respectively, and the second channel region is located between the first electrode region and the second electrode region; and the second channel region is a first doped region, and an energy level of the second channel region is different from an energy level of the first channel region corresponding to the energy level of the second channel region.
In some examples, a doping concentration of the second channel region is higher than a doping concentration of the first channel region.
In some examples, the material of the active layer comprises a carbon nanotube material or a nanowire material.
In some examples, the thin film transistor is a p-type thin film transistor, and the energy level of the second channel region is higher than the energy level of the first channel region corresponding to the energy level of the second channel region; or the thin film transistor is an n-type thin film transistor, and the energy level of the second channel region is lower than the energy level of the first channel region corresponding to the energy level of the second channel region.
In some examples, the thin film transistor is the p-type thin film transistor, a material of the first channel region is carbon nanotube, and a material of the second channel region is p-type carbon nanotube material obtained by doping the carbon nanotube with triethyloxonium hexachloroantimonate (OA) or yttrium oxide.
In some examples, the gate electrode is farther away from the base substrate than the active layer; and a gap exists between the gate electrode and the second electrode, and in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gap exposes the second channel region of the active layer.
In some examples, in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gate electrode overlaps with the first channel region and does not overlap with the second channel region.
In some examples, in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gate electrode overlaps with the first electrode and does not overlap with the second electrode.
In some examples, in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gate insulation layer overlaps with the first channel region and does not overlap with the second channel region.
In some examples, in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gate electrode overlaps with both the first channel region and the second channel region.
In some examples, the first electrode region and the second electrode region are second doped regions respectively, and both a doping concentration of the first electrode region and a doping concentration of the second electrode region are higher than a doping concentration of the second channel region.
In some examples, the first electrode and the second electrode are a source electrode of the thin film transistor and a drain electrode of the thin film transistor, respectively.
Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide an electronic device, and the electronic device comprises any one of the thin film transistors mentioned above.
Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a manufacturing method of a thin film transistor, and the manufacturing method comprises: forming an active layer, a first electrode, a second electrode, a gate insulation layer, and a gate electrode on a base substrate, in which the forming the active layer comprises: forming a one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer, the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer comprises a first electrode region, a second electrode region, a first channel region, and a first region to be doped, the first electrode and the second electrode are in contact with the first electrode region and the second electrode region respectively, the first channel region is directly connected with both the first electrode region and the first region to be doped, and the first region to be doped is located between the first channel region and the second electrode region; and doping the first region to be doped to form a second channel region, in which an energy level of the second channel region is different from an energy level of the first channel region corresponding to the energy level of the second channel region.
In some examples, a material of the active layer comprises a carbon nanotube material or a nanowire material.
In some examples, the forming the active layer, the first electrode, the second electrode, the gate insulation layer, and the gate electrode on the base substrate comprises: forming the active layer on the base substrate, forming the gate insulation layer on the active layer, forming the gate electrode on the gate insulation layer, in which in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the gate electrode overlaps with the first electrode, and a gap exists between the gate electrode and the second electrode, and the gap exposes the first region to be doped.
In some examples, the material of the active layer comprises the carbon nanotube material, and the doping the first region to be doped to form the second channel region comprises: after forming the gate electrode, doping the first region to be doped with triethyloxonium hexachloroantimonate (OA).
In some examples, the manufacturing method further comprises: after forming the gate electrode and before doping the first region to be doped, forming a protective layer to cover the thin film transistor, in which the protective layer exposes the first region to be doped.
In some examples, the forming of the active layer further comprises: removing a portion of the one-dimensional semiconductor nanomaterial layer extending beyond the first electrode and the second electrode.
In order to clearly illustrate the technical solution of the embodiments of the present disclosure, the drawings of the embodiments will be briefly described in the following. It is obvious that the described drawings in the following are only related to some embodiments of the present disclosure and thus are not limitative of the present disclosure.
In order to make objectives, technical details and advantages of the embodiments of the present disclosure apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments will be described in a clearly and fully understandable way in connection with the drawings related to the embodiments of the present disclosure. Apparently, the described embodiments are just a part but not all of the embodiments of the present disclosure. Based on the described embodiments herein, those skilled in the art can obtain other embodiment(s), without any inventive work, which should be within the scope of the present disclosure.
Unless otherwise defined, all the technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meanings as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present disclosure belongs. The terms “first,” “second,” etc., which are used in the present disclosure, are not intended to indicate any sequence, amount or importance, but distinguish various components. The terms “comprise,” “comprising,” “include,” “including,” etc., are intended to specify that the elements or the objects stated before these terms encompass the elements or the objects and equivalents thereof listed after these terms, but do not preclude the other elements or objects. The phrases “connect”, “connected”, etc., are not intended to define a physical connection or mechanical connection, but may include an electrical connection, directly or indirectly. “On,” “under,” “left”, “right” and the like are only used to indicate relative position relationship, and when the position of the described object is changed, the relative position relationship may be changed accordingly.
A one-dimensional semiconductor nano material refers to a semiconductor material with a nanometer scale (for example, 0.1 nm to 100 nm) in two dimensions other than a length direction. The one-dimensional semiconductor nano material includes, for example, carbon nanotubes and nanowires and so on. The one-dimensional semiconductor nano material has many advantages, such as, high mobility, mechanical flexibility, optical transparency, and so on. Therefore, it is believed that the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material can be used to fabricate high-performance microelectronic devices, such as, field effect transistors based on the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material, and 4-bit adders, display driving circuits, compatible flexible circuits and sensors and so on using the field effect transistors. The field effect transistors are, for example, insulated gate field effect transistors (MOSFETs), such as, thin film transistors and so on.
For example, for a large-scale integrated circuit, in high-speed and low-power applications, a transistor needs to have a high current switching ratio and a low turn-off state current. However, due to a small band gap of a carbon nanotube, in a turn-off state, a potential barrier between the carbon nanotube at a drain terminal of the transistor and the metal electrode becomes thinner so that a phenomenon of electron tunneling is easily to occur. For example, a micron-sized carbon nano thin film transistor has usually a turn-off state current of higher than 100 nanoamps and tends to have bipolar property, while a switching ratio at high bias voltage (1V) also decays to below 102. Such phenomenon becomes more obvious when using high-k and relatively thin gate dielectric. Based on the percolation theory, the turn-off state current of a carbon nanotube thin film transistor depends on a channel length, and in the case where the channel length is less than several microns, the turn-off state current is more difficult to suppress.
Some researchers have manufactured the carbon nanotube thin film transistors with a high switching ratio. However, in their work, the carbon nanotube thin film transistors usually tend to have relatively large size (more than 100 microns), or a very small source drain bias voltage (0.1V), and thus these devices are not suitable for use in an actual circuit. Therefore, there is a need for improving the performance of the carbon nanotube thin film transistor, and suppressing the bipolar property and reducing the turn-off state current in an effective mode.
Although some research groups have achieved an effect of suppressing the bipolar property on single-walled carbon nanotube field-effect transistors by means of double gate structure, feedback gate structure and chemical doping and so on respectively, these methods involve complicated manufacture processes and will reduce the on-state current of a device.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a field effect transistor in which a one-dimensional semiconductor nano material is used to manufacture an active layer. The energy level of the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material is regulated by asymmetrically doping the active layer so that the performance of the field effect transistor is successfully improved. Hereinafter the embodiments of the present disclosure will be illustrated by examples of a one-dimensional semiconductor nano material as the carbon nanotube material and a field effect transistor as the thin film transistor.
It should be noted that the source electrode and the drain electrode of the thin film transistor adopted herein can be symmetrical in structure, and thus there is no structural difference between the source electrode and the drain electrode. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, in order to distinguish the two electrodes of the transistor other than the gate electrode, one electrode is directly described as the first electrode, and the other electrode is described as the second electrode.
It should be noted that the “integrated structure” in the present disclosure refers to a structure in which two (or more) structures are formed in the same deposition process and patterned in the same patterning process so that they are inter-connected with each other, and the materials of the two (or more) structures can be the same or different. For example, the main materials of the first electrode region 231, the second electrode region 232, the first channel region 233, and the second channel region 234 can be the same, i.e., all of them can be carbon nanotube materials, which can have different conductive characteristics due to different doping concentrations.
The first electrode region 231 and the second electrode region 232 are in contact with the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25, respectively. For example, the first electrode region 231 and the second electrode region 232 form ohmic contact with the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25, respectively. As shown in
For example, as shown in
The second channel region 234 is, for example, a p-type doped region or an n-type doped region. By arranging the second channel region as a doped region, it is feasible to regulate the relationship between the energy levels of the second channel region 234 and the first channel region 233, and in turn achieve the adjustment of the electrical characteristics of the thin film transistor.
For example, as shown in
As shown in
The principle of energy level change in
For example, the first channel region 233 is an intrinsic carbon nanotube semiconductor material, and the second channel region 234 is an n-type semiconductor material or a p-type semiconductor material obtained by doping the intrinsic carbon nanotube semiconductor material.
For example, the carbon nanotube material adopted in the embodiment of the present disclosure is a carbon nanotube material with semiconductor characteristics and having a chiral index (n, m) satisfying that (n−m)/3 is a non-integer. However, the embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to specific chiral carbon nanotubes.
The material of the second channel region 234 is, for example, a p-type carbon nanotube material obtained by doping carbon nanotubes with triethyloxonium hexachloroantimonate (C2H5)3O+SbCl6− (OA). OA molecules which have certain oxidizability can be adsorbed onto the surface of the carbon nanotubes, and charge transfer occurs between the OA molecules and the carbon nanotubes to enable the carbon nanotubes to be stably positively charged, thereby achieving the p-type doping.
In other examples, the material of the second channel region 234 can also be a p-type carbon nanotube material obtained by doping carbon nanotubes with yttrium oxide. For example, the active layer can be p-doped by forming an yttrium oxide layer above the active layer corresponding to the second channel region 234 to obtain the second channel region 234 which is p-type.
In other examples, the material of the second channel region 234 can also be an n-type carbon nanotube material obtained by doping carbon nanotubes with alumina. For example, the active layer can be n-doped by forming an alumina layer above the active layer corresponding to the second channel region 234 so as to obtain the second channel region 234 which is n-type.
For example, the base substrate 100 is a flexible substrate, and the material of the base substrate 100 can be polyimide (PI), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene glycol terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polysulfone (PSF), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), cellulose triacetate (TAC), cycloolefin polymer (COP), and cycloolefin copolymer (COC) and so on. The base substrate 100 may also be a hard substrate, such as, a glass substrate, a silicon-based substrate and so on.
As shown in
For example, as shown in
For example, the gate electrode 21 overlaps with the first electrode 24 in the direction perpendicular to the base substrate 100, that is, an orthographic projection of the gate electrode 21 on the base substrate 100 overlaps with an orthographic projection of the first electrode 24 on the base substrate 100 so that the portion of the first channel region 233 close to the first electrode 24 under the control of the gate electrode, thereby help to improve the turn-on state current.
For example, the gate electrode 21 and the second electrode 25 are spaced apart from each other, and a gap exists between the gate electrode 21 and the second electrode 25 in the direction perpendicular to the base substrate 100, that is, a gap (that is, non-overlapping) exists between the orthographic projection of the gate electrode 21 on the base substrate 100 and the orthographic projection of the second electrode 25 on the base substrate 100. The gap exposes the second channel region 234 of the active layer 23.
For example, as shown in
In this structure, the gate electrode 21 and the gate insulation layer 22 are asymmetric with respect to the first electrode 21 and the second electrode 22, which corresponds to the manufacturing process of the device. However, the embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to this. In other examples, as shown in
For example, both the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 are located at the side of the active layer 23 away from the base substrate 100, that is, both the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 are located between the active layer 23 and the gate insulation layer 22 so that the active layer 23 is formed on a relatively flat surface, thereby reducing the defect state of the active layer 23.
For example, the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 are the source electrode and the drain electrode of the thin film transistor 20, respectively. Accordingly, the first electrode region 231 and the second electrode region 232 are a source contact region and a drain contact region, respectively. That is, the second channel region is arranged between the first channel region and the drain contact region, and the drain electrode refers to the electrode into which majority carriers of the device flow from the channel region and is distinguished from the source electrode from which most carriers flow out. The majority carriers refer to the main charges forming the turn-on state current of the transistor. For example, for the n-type transistor, the majority carriers are electrons. For the p-type transistor, the majority carriers are holes. Because the turn-off state current is formed by the reverse tunneling of minority carriers from the drain electrode to the channel region, by arranging the doped second channel region 234 between the first channel region 233 and the drain contact region, a potential barrier can be formed between the second channel region and the drain electrode to effectively prevent minority carriers from tunneling to form a leakage current, thereby reducing the turn-off state leakage current. For example, in the case where the thin film transistor 20 is applied into a circuit, the second electrode 25 can be connected as a drain electrode.
In addition, compared with the thin film transistor based on the symmetrically doped active layer (for example, the channel region with uniform doping concentration), the thin film transistor provided in the embodiments of the disclosure can further improve the turn-on state current, which will be described in details with reference to
In the turn-off state, a positive voltage is applied to the gate electrode of the thin film transistor, and there is an electric field with the first electrode (the source electrode S) pointing to the second electrode (the drain electrode D). Close to the drain electrode, under the action of the gate piezoelectric field, the energy level shifts downward, while under the action of the drain electric field, the energy level shifts upward. For the un-doped second channel region 234, it makes the Schottky barrier between the second channel region 234 and the second electrode 25 thinner, which makes the minority carriers (electrons) easy to tunnel, resulting in a large turn-off state current, or even the occurring of bipolar property. In the case that the second channel region is p-doped, as shown in
For example, referring to
In other examples, both the first channel region and the second channel region are doped regions, and the doping concentration of the second channel region is higher than the doping concentration of the first channel region. In the case where both the first channel region and the second channel region are controlled by a common gate voltage, for example, the gate electrode covers both the first channel region and the second channel region, the high doping concentration of the first channel region will lead to excessive conducting gate voltage, which will lead to excessive downward shift of the energy level of the first channel region, and make the Schottky barrier between the second channel region and the second electrode thinner, thereby making the minority carriers (electrons) easy to tunnel, resulting in a large turn-off state current, or even the occurring of device bipolarity. By setting the doping concentration of the second channel region to be higher than the doping concentration of the first channel region, the influence of the gate voltage on the Schottky barrier between the second channel region and the second electrode can be effectively avoided.
In the turn-on state, for the majority carriers (holes), doping causes the Schottky barrier between the second channel region 234 and the second electrode 25 to be decreased, thereby increasing the turn-on state current.
It can be similarly understood that, in the case where the active layer is symmetrically doped, for example, the active layer has channel regions with uniform doping concentration, because the first channel region 233 is doped in the region adjacent to the first electrode 24, the Schottky barrier between the first electrode 24 and the first channel region 233 increases, thereby reducing the turn-on state current. Therefore, the active layer structure with the asymmetrically doping provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure can increase the turn-on state current, while suppressing the turn-off state leakage current, thereby further improving the current switching ratio.
Similarly, the performance of the thin film transistor can also be improved by n-doping of the second channel region 234, which is not repeated in details herein. For example, carbon nanotubes can be n-doped with alumina. For example, the second channel region 234 can be n-doped by covering the second channel region 234 with an alumina layer.
For example, both the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 are made of a metal material or a metal alloy material. Because of the one-dimensional characteristics of the carbon nanotubes, there is no Fermi surface pinning effect in the case where the metal is in contact with semiconductor carbon nanotubes, so that a height of the Schottky barrier formed by contacting the first electrode 24 with the second electrode 25 is mainly determined by the work function difference between the carbon nanotubes and the metal material.
For example, the Fermi level of the metal is close to the bottom of conduction band of the carbon nanotubes or the top of valence band of the carbon nanotubes, and the difference between the Fermi level and the bottom of conduction band or between the Fermi level and the top of valence band, for example, is not more than 0.3 eV. For example, for an n-type thin film transistor, that is, in the case where the second channel region 234 is an n-doped region, the Fermi level of the metal is close to the bottom of conduction band of the carbon nanotubes, which is conducive to the smooth injection of electrons in the metal into the carbon nanotubes.
For example, for a p-type thin film transistor, that is, in the case where the second channel region 234 is a p-doped region, the Fermi level of the metal is close to the top of valence band of the carbon nanotubes, which is conducive to the smooth injection of holes in the metal into the carbon nanotubes. For example, both the material of the first electrode 24 and the material of the second electrode 25 include palladium (Pd). The work function of palladium is 5.1 eV. The Fermi level of the carbon nanotubes is 4.5 eV, and the energy gap of single-walled carbon nanotubes with a diameter of 1.5 nm is about 0.6 eV. Therefore, the bottom of valence band of the carbon nanotubes is about 4.8 eV (absolute value). That is, the Fermi level of palladium is close to and slightly lower than the bottom of valence band of the carbon nanotubes. This helps the direct injection of the holes in the first electrode 24 into the valence band of the carbon nanotubes under the action of the electric field, thereby forming a better p-type ohmic contact.
For example, both the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 include a laminated structure (Ti/Pd) of titanium (Ti) and palladium (Pd), titanium has a thickness of, for example, 0.1 nm to 0.8 nm, and is located between the palladium and the carbon nanotubes. Palladium has a thickness of, for example, 10 nm to 100 nm. Because of the good adhesion between the titanium and the carbon nanotubes, a thin layer of titanium deposited between the palladium and the carbon nanotubes is helpful to improve the adhesion between the electrode and the carbon nanotubes. Because the thickness of the titanium is low, and the titanium does not completely cover the surface of the carbon nanotubes, for example, the titanium are particles that are dispersedly adhered to the surface of carbon nanotubes, palladium is allowed to be in direct contact with the carbon nanotubes to form a good ohmic contact. For example, the first electrode 24 or the second electrode 25 also includes a laminated structure of titanium, palladium and nickel (Ti/Pd/Ni), a thickness of nickel is close to (in a same order of magnitude with) a thickness of palladium, for example, the thicknesses of titanium, palladium and nickel are 0.3 nm, 40 nm and 30 nm, respectively. Because palladium is expensive, the above arrangement can appropriately reduce the cost without affecting the ohmic contact between the electrode and the carbon nanotubes.
In other examples, as shown in
Taking the doping of carbon nanotubes with OA as an example, e.g., the carbon ring composed of six carbon atoms (similar to benzene ring) in the carbon nanotubes is represented by α, and a reaction between OA and the carbon nanotubes can be expressed as follows:
2α+3[(C2H5)3O+SbCl6−]→2[α+·SbCl6−]+3C2H5Cl+3(C2H5)2O+SbCl3.
Of those, SbCl6− is easy to adhere to the surface of metal (for example, the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25), so that the surface of the metal is negatively charged, which leads to an increase in the work function of the metal, thereby reducing the Schottky barrier between the metal and the carbon nanotubes, and reducing the contact resistance.
For example, the doping concentration of the second doped region is higher than the doping concentration of the first doped region, that is, both the doping concentration of the first electrode region 231 and the doping concentration of the second electrode region 232 are higher than the doping concentration of the second channel region 234.
At least one embodiment of the present disclosure further provides an electronic device, and the electronic device comprises any one of the thin film transistors described above. For example, the electronic device is a display device or an image acquisition device and so on, and the display device is a liquid crystal display device, an organic light-emitting diode display device, or an electronic paper display device. For example, the display device is applied to any products or components with a display function such as mobile phones, tablet computers, televisions, monitors, notebook computers, digital photo frames, and navigators and so on. For example, a pixel circuit in a pixel region of the display device or a drive circuit in a peripheral region of the display device includes the thin film transistor 20.
The gate electrode of the thin film transistor 20 is electrically connected with the gate line 101, and one of the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 is electrically connected with the data line 102, and the other of the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 is electrically connected with the pixel electrode 120. For example, the first electrode 24 of the thin film transistor 20 is a source electrode, and the second electrode 25 of the thin film transistor 20 is a drain electrode. For example, as shown in
In the case where the gate line 101 receives a scanning signal, a row of thin film transistors 20 correspondingly connected with the gate line 101 are turned on. Data on the data line 102 is written into the pixel electrode 120 through the thin film transistor 20 correspondingly connected with the data line. Liquid crystal molecules are deflected by the electric field between the pixel electrode 120 and the common electrode (not shown) to perform the display operation.
In the embodiment as shown in
At least one embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a manufacturing method of any one of the aforesaid thin film transistors. The manufacturing method at least includes: forming an active layer, a first electrode, a second electrode, a gate insulation layer, and a gate electrode on a base substrate, the forming the active layer includes: forming a one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer, in which the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer includes a first electrode region, a second electrode region, a first channel region, and a first region to be doped, the first electrode and the second electrode are in contact with the first electrode region and the second electrode region respectively, the first channel region is directly connected with both the first electrode region and the first region to be doped, and the first region to be doped is located between the first channel region and the second electrode region; and doping the first region to be doped to form a second channel region, in which an energy level of the second channel region is different from an energy level of the first channel region corresponding to the energy level of the second channel region.
Step S61: as shown in
For example, the material of the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer 203 is a carbon nanotube material, a nanowire material and so on, for example, a single-walled carbon nanotube material.
For example, take the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer made of the single-walled carbon nanotube material as an example. The manufacturing method includes forming single-walled carbon nanotube powder by an arc method (or a thermal plasma method, a laser ablation method). Then, the single-walled carbon nanotube powder is mixed with an organic solution (for example, a toluene solution containing polymer), dispersed, centrifuged, filtered, and redispersed to give a solution of semiconductor single-walled carbon nanotubes. Then, a single-walled carbon nanotube layer is deposited on the base substrate 100 by a Czochralski method.
The carbon nanotube material adopted in the embodiments of the present disclosure is a carbon nanotube material with semiconductor characteristics and having a chiral index (n, m) satisfying that (n−m)/3 is a non-integer. However, the embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to specific chiral carbon nanotubes.
For example, the base substrate 100 includes a silicon substrate, and in order to prevent the silicon substrate from affecting the characteristics of the device, a silicon oxide film may be further formed on the silicon substrate. For example, the base substrate 100 is also a glass substrate or a flexible substrate, and the material of the flexible substrate can be, e.g., polyimide (PI), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene glycol terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polysulfone (PSF), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), cellulose triacetate (TAC), cycloolefin polymer (COP), and cycloolefin copolymer (COC) and so on.
Step S62: as shown in
For example, a first conductive layer is formed on the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer 203, and the first conductive layer is patterned to form the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25. For example, the patterning process performed on the first conductive layer is performed by using a patterning process of photoresist combined with an etching process or a lift-off process. For example, a first photoresist is first formed on the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer 203, and the first photoresist is exposed (for example, by electron beam exposure technology) and developed to form a first photoresist pattern exposing the first electrode region 231 and the second electrode region 232, and then a first conductive layer is formed on the first photoresist pattern, and a lift-off process is adopted to remove the first photoresist pattern and the conductive layer on the first photoresist pattern, thereby forming the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 spaced apart from each other as shown in
For example, a distance between the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 is 50 nm to 50 μm, so as to define a channel length of the thin film transistor. For example, a width (in a direction perpendicular to the channel length) of the first electrode 24 and a width (in a direction perpendicular to the channel length) of the second electrode 25 are 50 nm to 100 μm, so as to define a channel width of the thin film transistor.
For example, a material of the first conductive layer is metal or metal alloy, such as palladium, scandium, chromium, nickel, gold, copper and so on. For example, the Fermi level of the metal material is close to the bottom of conduction band or the top of valence band of the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer 203 with a difference of, e.g., not more than 0.3 eV. For example, for the n-type thin film transistor, the Fermi level of the metal is close to the bottom of conductive band of the carbon nanotubes, which is conducive to the smooth injection of electrons in the metal into the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material. For example, for the p-type thin film transistors, the Fermi level of the metal is close to the top of valence band of the carbon nanotubes, which is conducive to the smooth injection of holes in the metal into the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material.
For example, the first electrode 24 and the second electrode 25 include a laminated structure (Ti/Pd) of titanium (Ti) and palladium (Pd), titanium has a thickness of, for example, 0.1 nm to 0.8 nm, and is located between the palladium and the carbon nanotubes. Palladium has a thickness of, for example, 10 nm to 100 nm.
For example, the first conductive layer is formed on the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer 203 by a vapor deposition process to reduce the contact resistance.
For example, as shown in
Step S63: as shown in
The first insulation layer is formed on the first conductive layer, and a second patterning process is performed on the first insulation layer to form the gate insulation layer. For example, a second photoresist is first formed on the first conductive layer, and the second photoresist is exposed (for example, by the electron beam exposure technology) and developed to form a second photoresist pattern exposing at least a portion of the first electrode and the first channel region 233. Then, the first conductive layer is formed on the first photoresist, and a lift-off process is adopted to remove the second photoresist pattern and the insulation layer on the second photoresist pattern, thereby forming a gate insulation layer 22 as shown in
For example, the material of the first insulation layer is silicon nitride or silicon oxide, and may also be a metal oxide insulation material, such as hafnium oxide (HfO2). For example, the first insulation layer is formed by a chemical vapor deposition method, an atomic layer deposition (ALD) method and so on. For example, a thickness of the first insulation layer is 10 nm to 50 nm.
In an example, an atomic layer deposition process is used to form a hafnium oxide film with a thickness of 10 nm as the first insulation layer at 90° C.
S64: as shown in
A second conductive layer is formed on the gate insulation layer 22, and a third patterning process is performed on the second conductive layer to form the gate electrode 21. For example, the third patterning process includes the above etching process or the above lift-off process, which will not be described in details herein.
For example, a material of the second conductive layer is metal or metal alloy, such as, palladium, scandium, chromium, nickel, gold, copper and so on.
For example, the second conductive layer is formed by an evaporation process, a sputtering process and other processes. For example, a thickness of the second conductive layer is 50 nm to 200 nm.
In an example, the second conductive layer includes a laminated structure of palladium and nickel, and the thicknesses of the palladium layer and the nickel layer are 20 nm and 80 nm, respectively, and the palladium layer is closer to the gate insulation layer 22.
Step S65: doping the first region to be doped 204 to form a second channel region 234.
For example, as shown in
The following takes the material of the one-dimensional semiconductor nano material layer including the carbon nanotubes as an example. The doping of the first doped region 204 is exemplified by taking p-type doping of the carbon nanotube as an example.
Because the band gap of carbon nanotubes is small, it is difficult to adopt atomic substitution doping of traditional semiconductors. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, molecular adsorption is adopted, so that the dopant is in direct contact with the surface of the carbon nanotubes and the charge transfer is occurred, thereby performing the doping of the carbon nanotubes.
For example, the doping process includes preparing a doping solution, for example, dissolving triethyloxonium hexachloroantimonate (OA) molecules in an organic solvent to form an OA solution, for example, the organic solvent is isopropanol. For example, a mass of the OA molecules is 60 mg and a mass of isopropanol is 6 ml.
Then, the transistor structure having the protective layer 110 formed thereon is soaked in the OA solution to dope the first region to be doped 204. The doping concentration of the first region to be doped 204 can be adjusted by adjusting the concentration of the OA molecules in the OA solution and the soaking conditions (such as the solution temperature and the soaking time and so on.). For example, in this embodiment, the transistor structure having the protective layer 110 formed thereon is soaked in the OA solution at 40° C., and stands for 20 hours. Because the first region to be doped 204 is exposed to air, the first region to be doped 204 is in direct contact with the OA solution. The OA molecules which have certain oxidizability can be adsorbed onto the surface of the carbon nanotubes so that charge transfer occurs between the OA molecules and the carbon nanotubes, thereby resulting in the stably positively charged carbon nanotubes, and performing the p-type doping.
Then, the residual dopant on the transistor structure is cleaned and the protective layer 110 is removed. For example, isopropyl alcohol is used to remove the residual OA molecules, and acetone is used to remove the protective layer 110. Thus, the thin film transistor 20 shown in
As shown in
In the manufacturing method of the thin film transistor of the above example, an asymmetric gate electrode with respect to the first electrode and the second electrode is formed to achieve the doping of the second channel region 234. In other embodiments, symmetrical gate structures can also be formed. For example, as shown in
In other examples, a thin film transistor with a bottom gate structure or thin film transistors with other structures may also be formed, which will not be described in details herein.
The above are merely specific implementations of the present disclosure without limiting the protection scope of the present disclosure thereto. The protection scope of the present disclosure should be based on the protection scope of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201910488469.7 | Jun 2019 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2020/094147 | 6/3/2020 | WO |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2020/244541 | 12/10/2020 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20210328163 A1 | Oct 2021 | US |