Nickel metal induced latera crystallization of patterned amorphous silicon thin film

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.