We have investigated the growth of silicon polycrystals from deposited amorphous films on several different substrates. Using Raman spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and optical microscopy, we find that substrate choice affects crystallite size, preferential orientation, and growth rate. In addition, it is shown that large high quality crystals can be grown on low cost glasses.
We report on the first polycrystalline-silicon (poly-Si) thinfilm transistor (TFT) deposited at low temperature on Corning 7059 glass. It has immediate practical applications for low-cost thin-film display and imaging electronics manufacturing. All the process steps used to fabricate the poly-Si device occurred at temperatures of 550°C or less. The poly-Si films exhibit crystallite grain sizes on the order of 5000 A, and the fabricated devices have shown field-effect mobilities of 10-20 cm2/V-s and threshold voltages around zero. We have also developed a novel plasma process to form the source and drain contacts.
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