A dry-patterned Cu(Mg) alloy film as a gate electrode in a thin-film transistor liquid crystal display

The annealing of a Cu(4.5at.%Mg)/SiO2/Si structure in ambient O-2 at 10 mtorr and 300-500degreesC allows for the out-diffusion of the Mg to the Cu surface, forming a thin MgO (15 nm) layer on the surface. The surface MgO layer was patterned and successfully served as a hard mask for the subsequent dry etching of the underlying Mg-depleted Cu films using an O-2 plasma and hexafluoroacetylacetone (H(hfac)) chemistry. The resultant MgO/Cu structure, with a taper slope of about 30degrees, shows the feasibility of dry etching of Cu(Mg) alloy films using a surface MgO mask scheme. A dry-etched Cu(4.5at.%Mg) gate a-Si:H thin-film transistor (TFT) has a field-effect mobility of 0.86 cm(2)/VS, a subthreshold swing of 1.08 V/dec, and a threshold voltage of 5.7 V. A novel process for the dry etching of Cu(Mg) alloy films that eliminates the use of a hard mask, such as Ti, and results in a reduction in the process steps is reported for the first time in this work.