Low tempeature lateral crystallization of amorphous silicon on glass

Low temperature lateral growth of amorphous silicon films has been achieved on thin flexible glasses using ultra-violet assisted metal-induced crystallization technique. 125mum ordinary glass substrate is sputter-coated with 1500Angstrom chromium and a 1000Angstrom SiN layer, respectively. 1000Angstrom Si film was deposited using e-beam evaporation at a temperature of 350degreesC. Equally spaced dots of nickel pads with 140mum separation were used as seed of crystallization of a-Si layer. Crystallinity of the samples was studied using XRD, SEM and optical microscopy. Some crystallographic etchants were used to develop the crystal orientations for SEM analysis. Based on this study, a lateral growth rate of 2mum/hr is obtained at a temperature of 380degreesC. Activation energy of 1.4 to 1.5eV is extracted for this UV-assisted MILC process.