Explosive crystallization is a well known phenomenon occurring due to the thermodynamic instability of strongly under-cooled liquids, which is particularly relevant in pulsed laser annealing processes of amorphous semiconductor materials due to the globally exothermic amorphous-toliquid-to-crystal transition pathway. In spite of the assessed understanding of this phenomenon, quantitative predictions of the material kinetics promoted by explosive crystallization are hardly achieved due to the lack of a consistent model able to simulate the concurrent kinetics of the amorphous-liquid and liquid-crystal interfaces. Here, we propose a multi-well phase-field model specifically suited for the simulation of explosive crystallization induced by pulsed laser irradiation in the nanosecond time scale. The numerical implementation of the model is robust despite the discontinuous jumps of the interface speed induced by the phenomenon. The predictive potential of the simulations is demonstrated by means of comparisons of the modelling predictions with experimental data in terms of in situ reflectivity measurements and ex-situ micro-structural and chemical characterization.

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This work investigates the additional gate current component with respect to the direct tunneling of electrons between the conduction bands measured in ultrathin oxide metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors at low voltages, before and after the application of a high field stress. We discuss several possible conduction mechanisms on the basis of the band diagram profiles obtained by means of a one-dimensional self-consistent Poisson–Schrodinger solver and we explain why this additional leakage current is mainly due to electron tunneling involving the native and stress-induced interface states in the silicon band gap either at the cathode or at the anode.

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