Location control of crystal grains in excimer laser crystallization of silicon thin films

Location of crystal grains in polycrystalline Si thin films formed by excimer-laser crystallization is controlled by manipulating the superlateral-growth phenomenon. The superlateral growth of a single grain occurs preferentially at an artificial site where nanometer-sized crystallites are embedded in the precursory amorphous thin films. Only a part of the crystallites embedded in the site could survive the melting and grow to serve as the seed crystal in the subsequent recrystallization. Such grain-location control provides a basis for two-dimensional control of the grain-boundary location in low-temperature polycrystalline Si thin films, which is essential to the device-to-device uniformity of high-performance thin-film transistors.