Nickel Metal Induced Lateral Crystallization of Patterned Amorphous Silicon Thin Film

Abstract

Metal-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) of patterned amorphous silicon(a-Si) thin film using Ni as a catalyst has been investigated. Ni-MILC grains are based on the growth of needle-like crystals due to the migration of NiSi2 precipitates, which located at the crystalline front, along the <111> directions. In the case where the needle-like crystallites collided at the a-Si pattern edge, not only “turn” or “branch” of the needle-like crystallites toward one of the possible <111> directions but also the growth along the pattern edge were observed. By limiting the growth area, the competitive growth of dendrite crystals that originated in needle-like crystallites was found to appear. This phenomenon resulted in the orientation alignment of MILC crystals in a wide area. Besides, the grain-filtering of MILC crystals was found to be possible by narrowing the pattern width.