Effect of amorphous silicon shape on its metal-induced lateral crystallization rate

Abstract

In this study, we observed that the metal-induced lateral crystallization rate depends on the amorphous silicon active pattern shape and we explained the phenomena with MILC mechanism model. Ten-nm-thick Ni layers were deposited on glass substrate that had various amorphous silicon patterns on it. Then the samples were annealed at 550 °C with rapid thermal annealing apparatus and measured the crystallized length with optical microscope. The MILC rate was reduced dramatically and even stopped for several hours. We named this stopped crystallization time “incubation time.” The incubation time increased as the width ratio of amorphous silicon was getting larger. We propose that these phenomena are related to the tensile stress that is caused by the volume shrinkage associated to the phase transformation from amorphous silicon to crystalline silicon.