Zone-defined growth of multicrystalline silicon film from metal-silicon solution

A new method to prepare multicrystalline silicon films from the metal-silicon solution was examined. In this method, control of nucleation is easier compared with that of the usual solution growth technique because the crystal growth is limited to near the melting zone produced by the lamp heater focused on a metal–Si mixture. We successfully grew a continuous Si film as thick as 120 μm on Al2O3 substrate at low temperature, using aluminum as the solvent metal, without seeding nucleation site on the surface of the substrate.