Palladium-Induced Lateral Crystallization of Amorphous-Germanium Thin Film on Insulating Substrate

In this article, metal (palladium, Pd)-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) of amorphous-germanium films prepared by room-temperature sputtering on an insulating material is observed and investigated using micro-Raman microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The planar thin films were annealed at 300, 350, and in a ambient. The MILC phenomenon is not observed for the samples annealed at for 2 h, while the MILC phenomenon is observed for films annealed at 350 and for 2 h with a lateral growth rate of and , respectively. A poly-Ge film with a annealing temperature exhibits a smaller full width at half-maximum and a higher intensity of the sharp c-Ge peak than that annealed at , which can be the promising material candidate for Si-based three-dimensional integrated circuit applications.