Free Electron Laser Annealing of Amorphous Silicon Carbide

Abstract

We have applied a free electron laser (FEL) to crystallize amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) at room temperature. The FEL has two main characteristics, wavelength tunability and ultrashort-pulse operation (∼10 ps) with intense peak power ( ∼MW). The wavelength was selected to be 12.6 µ m which corresponds to the energy of the Si–C stretch mode in order to excite the lattice vibration directly. FT-IR measurements of the a-SiC film showed that the broad peak in the absorption spectrum became sharp after irradiation with the FEL. X-ray diffraction measurements of the irradiated sample revealed a peak related to SiC crystals. These measurements suggest that crystallization of a-SiC occurs at room temperature when irradiation with a FEL.