Effects of contact resistance on the evaluation of charge carrier mobilities and transport parameters in amorphous zinc tin oxide thin-film transistors

Accurate determination of the charge transport characteristics of amorphous metal-oxide transistors requires the mitigation of the effects of contact resistance. The use of additional electrodes as voltage probes can overcome contact resistance-related limitations and yields accurate charge carrier mobility values, trap depths and temperature and carrier density dependencies of mobility as well as trap depths. We show that large differences in measured charge carrier mobility values are obtained when such contact resistances are not factored out. Upon exclusion of the contact resistance, the true temperature dependence of charge carrier mobility appears in the form of two clearly distinct mobility regimes. Analyzing these revealed mobility regions leads to a more accurate determination of the underlying transport physics, which shows that contact resistance-related artefacts yield incorrect trends of trap depth with gate voltage, potentially leading to a misconstruction of the charge transport picture. Furthermore, a comparison of low- and high-mobility samples indicates that the observed effects are more general.