Laser Annealing of Damaged Silicon Covered with a Metal Film: Test for Epitaxial Growth from the Melt

Damage annealing of a silicon wafer covered by a Ti layer has been obtained by irradiation with a ruby-laser 20-ns pulse of 1 J/cm² energy density. The thickness of the metal film was chosen so as to ensure complete absorption of the light in order to avoid the formation of a photoexcited electron-hole plasma in Si. The results show a good annealing of the Si damage and a titanium diffusion coefficient consistent with an epitaxial growth from the melt.