Abstract
The electrical stress of short channel polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin film transistor (TFT) has been investigated. The device characteristics of short channel poly-Si TFT with 5$\mu$m channel length has been observed to be significantly degraded such as a large shift in threshold voltage and asymmetric phenomena after the electrical stress. The dominant degradation mechanism in long channel poly-Si TFT's with 10$\mu$m and 20$\mu$m channel length respectively is charage trappling in gate oxide while that in short channel device with 5.mu.m channel length is defect creation in active poly-Si layer. We propose that the increased defect density within depletion region near drain junction due to high electric field which could be evidenced by kink effect, constitutes the important reason for this significant degradation in short channel poly-Si TFT. The proposed model is verified by comparing the amounts of the defect creation and the charge trapping from the strechout voltage.
