In this research, paraffin wax is employed as the passivation layer of the bottom gate amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide thin-film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs), and it is formed by sol-gel process in the atmosphere. The high yield and low cost passivation layer of sol-gel process technology has attracted much attention for current flat-panel-display manufacturing. Comparing with passivation-free a-IGZO TFTs, passivated devices exhibit a superior stability against positive gate bias stress in different ambient gas, demonstrating that paraffin wax shows gas-resisting characteristics for a-IGZO TFTs application. Furthermore, light-induced stretch-out phenomenon for paraffin wax passivated device is suppressed. This superior stability of the passivated device was attributed to the reduced total density of states (DOS) including the interfacial and semiconductor bulk trap densities. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.