Highly Reliable Flexible Device with a Charge Compensation Layer

Flexible devices fabricated with a polyimide (PI) substrate are essential for foldable, rollable, and stretchable products and various applications. However, inherent technical challenges remain in mobile charge-induced device instabilities and image retention, significantly hindering future technologies. Here, we introduce a new barrier material, SiCOH, into the backplane of amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) and applied it to production-level flexible panels. We found that the SiCOH layer effectively compensates for the surface charging induced by fluorine ions at the interface between the PI substrate and the barrier layer under bias stress, thereby preventing abnormal positive shifts in threshold voltage (V_th) and image disturbance. The a-IGZO TFTs and metal-insulator-metal and metal-insulator-semiconductor capacitors with a SiCOH layer demonstrate reliable device performance, V_th shifts, and capacitance changes with an increase in gate bias stress. A flexible device with SiCOH enables the suppression of abnormal V_th shifts associated with PIs and plays a vital role in image sticking. This work provides new insights into process integrity and paves the way for expediting versatile form factors.