Optimization of phase-modulated excimer-laser annealing method for growing highly-packed large-grains in Si thin-films

Optimization has been done theoretically for the phase-modulated excimer-laser annealing method to grow highly packed large grains in the Si film, where the divergence of the laser light beam plays an important role. Generalized optimum annealing conditions were given graphically as a function of the maximum-to-minimum light intensity ratio. Theoretical results were verified also experimentally by growing grains as large as 7 mm with 10 mm-pitch using a single shot of excimer-laser light pulse. It is pointed out that there is a room for improving the packing density to almost 100% by simply shortening the pitch of the phase shifters. q2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.