Grain Growth Control during Micro-Thermal-Plasma-Jet Irradiation Using Amorphous Si Strips and Slit Masks

Abstract

Lateral grain growth was induced by micro-thermal-plasma-jet (μ-TPJ) irradiation to amorphous silicon (a-Si) films through slit masks. From a high-speed camera observation, a-Si films were solid-phase crystallized and then a oval molten region stretched in a direction perpendicular to the scan direction was formed, followed by a lateral grain growth of 170 μm in length. Such a long growth distance was achieved due to the strong temperature gradient in molten Si formed by slit masks and the growth velocity reached as high as 1600 mm/s. By μ-TPJ irradiation to slit masks precisely aligned with a-Si strips with the width (W) of 1 ~ 10 μm, filtering effect was confirmed when W was below 2 μm. The maximum single-grain length of 100 μm which have low defects was achieved in Si strips.