Real time monitoring of the crystallization process during the plasma annealing of amorphous silicon

✍ Scribed by Ohta, Naoki ;Imamura, Takashi ;Shimizu, Hirokazu ;Kobayashi, Tomohiro ;Shirai, Hajime

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 593 KB
• Volume: 207
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.200982720

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The transient surface temperature and optical transmissivity profiles during the plasma annealing of amorphous silicon (a‐Si) on quartz substrate was studied using a radio‐frequency (rf) thermal plasma torch (TPT). The film crystallization promoted through solid‐phase crystallization (SPC) at surface temperature of 750 °C, followed by a lateral crystalline grain growth at above 900 °C within millisecond time domain. The spectroscopic ellipsometry study revealed that the film crystallization by a TPT annealing promoted from near the bottom surface due to the sufficient thermal storage in the bulk rather than the top surface. The average crystalline grain size extended to 200–300 nm by adjusting the stage velocity and substrate distance.