Crack-guided effect on dynamic mechanical stress for foldable low temperature polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors

Article history: Received 26 June 2016 Accepted 7 July 2016 Available online xxxx In the thin film transistors (TFTs) device research for foldable display, the degradation effect by the mechanical stress is crucial. Here, the crack position is critical for TFT reliability. However, it is difficult to characterize the crack position due to the random generation of the crack by mechanical stress. In this paper, the crack-guided low temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFT test structures are fabricated and the crack-guided effects on mechanical stress of the tested TFT structure are analyzed. To strain on the foldable LTPS TFTs, 50,000 cycles of tensile andparallel direction dynamicmechanical stresseswere appliedwith 2.5-mmbending radius. Based on the results, the generating crack position can be guided and controlled and also TFT reliability for foldable display can be enhanced. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.