Solidification Interface Instabilities During Zone Melting Recrystallization Processing of Multilayer thin Film Structures

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a stability analysis of the solidification interface during graphite-strip zone-melting-recrystallization of Silicon-On-Insulator thin film structures. The study focused on instabilities induced by i) variations in the optical properties due to thickness perturbations in the structure and ii) changes in optical properties during phase change. Reflective and emissive interference effects between multilayers play a significant role in the temperature distributions during processing. The presence of a step perturbation imbedded within the film structure affects local heat absorption and resulting temperature profiles. Such disturbances that trigger instabilities at the solid-liquid interface were investigated numerically. Processing speeds which cause interface instability due to optical property variation during phase change were identified.