Jooyoung Yoon, a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering (coauthor: Dowan Kang; advisor: Professor Yoon Young Chung), won the Grand Prize at the Samsung Display Industry–University Cooperation Paper Competition.

The award-winning paper, “Improving Contact Resistance and Thermal Stability of Sub-µm a-IGZO Transistors for Next-Generation Displays,” proposed a new approach to simultaneously improving contact resistance and thermal stability at oxide semiconductor/metal interfaces, a key technology for next-generation high-resolution displays.

Oxide semiconductors are used in the display industry because of their many advantages. However, their lower electron mobility and higher contact resistance compared with silicon have made them difficult to apply to next-generation displays with high pixel densities.

The study proposed inserting an ultrathin insulating layer between the oxide semiconductor and metal to prevent diffusion and effectively suppress metal oxide formation at the interface. This reduced contact resistance and improved the electrical characteristics of short-channel devices while minimizing heat-induced degradation in transistor performance.

The work was highly regarded as an important technological advance contributing to the long-term stability and high-resolution capability of display devices.