Forming Low-Resistivity Electrodes of Thin Film Transistors with Selective Electroless Plating Process

The silver gate and source/drain electrodes for an a-Si thin film transistor were fabricated by the selective electroless plating (SELP) process. Relevant physical properties including taper angle, uniformity and resistivity are investigated. The Ag layer was about 150nm to 250nm thick, the resistivity less than $3{\times}10^{-6}$ Ohm-cm and the taper angle 45'-60' and the nonuniformity less than 10% on G2 substrates. The transfer characteristics with the Ag gate, and source/drain electrodes respectively possessed good field effect mobility similar to conventionally fabricated a-Si TFTs. This process provided low resistivity, low cost and ease of processing.