Laterally seeded epitaxy enhancement in zone melting recrystallisation by increase of silicon film thickness

Polycrystalline silicon films with various thickness on SiO₂ with seeding windows were recrystallised at high scan speeds using RF-induced graphite strip heating. It has been found that the laterally seeded epitaxial widths of defect-free silicon films on SiO₂ are 40 and 53 mu m for film thicknesses of 350 and 500 nm, respectively. For a 1100 nm-thick silicon film, the epitaxy width reaches 100 mu m. The scan direction of the strip heater was perpendicular to seeding windows in the experiments.