Although conventional metal-induced laterally crystallized (MILC) thin film transistors (TFTs) are better than solid phase crystallized (SPC) TFTs in many device performance measures, they are less ideal in others, owing to the higher leakage current and early drain breakdown. It has been found that degradation can be reduced by eliminating the overlap of the metallurgical junctions of the source/drain regions, formed by metal-induced crystallization (MIC), and the grain boundaries at the MIC/MILC interface. Here, the drain leakage current (I-lk) behavior of MILC TFTs with and without overlap has been studied. It is observed that under certain gate bias conditions, the relative magnitude of I-lk for the two kinds of devices exhibits an interesting reversal as the drain bias is varied.