A model for crystal growth during metal induced lateral crystallization of amorphous silicon

In this work a model has been proposed to predict crystal growth with metal induced lateral crystallization (MILC) of thin films of amorphous silicon (alpha-Si). Previous work by different groups using nickel for MILC reports crystal growth rate increasing as well as decreasing with time. Based on their experimental results, we propose that part or all of nickel in newly crystallized Si comes from the NiSi2 moving front which reduces its thickness. With a few assumptions, relation between rate of crystal growth and rate of NiSi2 thinning is obtained. Two regimes, diffusion limited growth and surface reaction limited growth are proposed for MILC to explain increasing and decreasing crystal growth rates. After calculating crystal growth as a function of time, the proposed model is compared with experimental data. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.