Charge trapping instabilities in amorphous silicon-silicon nitride thin-film transistors

The most important instability mechanism in amorphous silicon-silicon nitride thin-film transistors is charge trapping in the silicon nitride layer, which leads to a threshold voltage shift (ΔVT). We have measured the time, temperature, and gate voltage dependence of ΔVT and conclude that the rate limiting process, in the charge transfer from semiconductor to insulator, is the conduction in the nitride by variable-range hopping. The threshold shift (under positive bias) is temperature dependent with an activation energy of 0.3 eV. This activation energy is identified with the mean hop energy required to inject charge deep into the silicon nitride at the low applied fields appropriate to transistor operation.