Fluorine Plasma-Treated ITO Transistors: Reliability and Temperature Dependence From 77 to 375 K

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrated the fluorine (F) plasma-treated indium–tin–oxide field-effect transistors (ITO:F FETs) with channel lengths ranging from 40 nm to $10~\mu $ m. Their electrical characteristics and dark-state positive-bias-temperature-instability (PBTI) behavior were systematically investigated over a broad temperature range from 77 to 375 K. Our results show that the fluorine plasma treatment effectively tunes the threshold voltage ( ${V}_{\text {TH}}$ ) of indium–tin–oxide (ITO) field-effect transistors (FETs) while preserving strong drive current and normal switching behavior, consistent across devices with different channel lengths. Notably, the 40-nm ITO:F FET demonstrates excellent dark-state PBTI stability. After PBTI stressing up to 10 ks under an overdrive field ( ${E}_{\text {OX}}$ ) of 2.5 MV/cm, the ITO:F FET exhibits threshold voltage shifts ( $\Delta {V}_{\text {TH}}$ ) of 42 mV at 300 K. These findings highlight the potential of fluorine plasma treatment to improve the electrical characteristics and PBTI stability of ITO FETs.