Metal-Induced-Lateral-Crystallization (MILC) of amorphous silicon has been considered as a low temperature alternative method for Solid Phase Crystallization (SPC) [1] [2]. It provides an efficient technology for microelectronic device fabrication. Recently, many researches have proven that MILC can be used to produce better silicon quality with respect to the conventional SPC technology [3]. The cost of MILC is much lower than that of current Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technologies, such as SIMOX and BESOI [4] [5] . So, it is believed that MILC is a promising technology for SOI devices....[ Read more ]

Metal-Induced-Lateral-Crystallization (MILC) of amorphous silicon has been considered as a low temperature alternative method for Solid Phase Crystallization (SPC) [1] [2]. It provides an efficient technology for microelectronic device fabrication. Recently, many researches have proven that MILC can be used to produce better silicon quality with respect to the conventional SPC technology [3]. The cost of MILC is much lower than that of current Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technologies, such as SIMOX and BESOI [4] [5] . So, it is believed that MILC is a promising technology for SOI devices.

Although the MILC has been recognized as a useful device fabrication technology, the best condition for making high quality MILC silicon has not been optimized. In my thesis research, I focused on the optimization studies of the MILC technology, in order to obtain a high performance MILC silicon layer. Effects of nickel were first studied. It was found that the positions of MILC silicon grains could be easier to confine beside the tips of nickel seed-line windows. For silicon layer study, MILC was carried out on a 6000 Å amorphous silicon layer and then the upper 5000 Å silicon layer was removed. Both optical and electrical results showed that the quality of the bottom 1000 Å silicon layer was better than that of a normal 1000 Å MILC silicon layer. In the last section, different annealing methods, such as ramp annealing and pulsed rapid thermal annealing were studied as well. Optimum annealing conditions were proposed to produce a good MILC silicon layer for TFT device fabrication.