Techniques are disclosed for forming thin-film transistors (TFTs) with low contact resistance. As disclosed in the present application, the low contact resistance can be achieved by intentionally thinning one or both of the source/drain (S/D) regions of the thin-film layer of the TFT device. As the TFT layer may have an initial thickness in the range of 20-65 nm, the techniques for thinning the S/D regions of the TFT layer described herein may reduce the thickness in one or both of those S/D regions to a resulting thickness of 3-10 nm, for example. Intentionally thinning one or both of the S/D regions of the TFT layer induces more electrostatic charges inside the thinned S/D region, thereby increasing the effective dopant in that S/D region. The increase in effective dopant in the thinned S/D region helps lower the related contact resistance, thereby leading to enhanced overall device performance.