Pulsed laser annealing of single-crystal and ion-implanted semiconductors

The dynamic characteristics of both single-crystal and ion-implanted semiconductor layers annealed by a pulsed high-power laser beam is examined analytically for the first time by means of a parametrized perturbation method. The laser-induced lattice temperature rise is explicitly related to the laser beam parameters as well as the semiconductor properties. Specifically, the temperature in the annealed semiconductor is characterized in terms of the ambipolar diffusion length of hot, excess charge carriers, the optical attenuation coefficient of the medium, and the operating laser power, and the threshold pulse energy for surface melting is calculated for the case of silicon devices. It is shown that the pulse energy required for the onset of surface melting is sensitively dependent on the optical absorption coefficient, decreases significantly with increasing pulse intensity, and increases remarkably with increasing diffusion length of excess charge carriers.