Low-Temperature Metal Induced Crystallization of Amorphous Silicon Using Nano-Nickel Particles

Abstract

A simple method was presented to conduct the low-temperature metal induced crystallization of an amorphous silicon (a-Si) film using nano-sized nickel particles. The effects of the annealing temperature and the duration on the morphology and the crystallized size of the induced polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) film were investigated using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), a twin thin-film X-ray diffractometer (XRD), a Raman spectrometer, and an energy dispersive spectrum (EDS). In addition, the residual nickel and the I-V characteristics of the poly-Si film were measured using a secondary ion mass spectrometer and a semiconductor parameter analyzer, respectively. The crystalline peak of Si (311) was obviously detected even at an annealing temperature of 400°C and the duration of 1 h. The crystallization temperature was lowered due to the high activity of the nano-nickel particles. Therefore, this study supports the feasibility of applying nano-nickel particles to crystallize the a-Si film.

Two-Step Annealing for Solution-Based Metal Induced Crystallization of Amorphous Silicon Films

“…The EDS analysis of the sample reveals that the atom ratio of Si:Ni:Pt is 89.80:0.09:10.11 on average. Compared with physical method metal induced, the result is reported by Chou et al [13] that the atom ratio of Ni is 0.23. So the residual metal is very little relatively in our work.…”

Aluminium Induced Crystallization of Amorphous Silicon via Solution Derived Catalyst

“…The MIC of a-Si can occur through the diffusion of specifically selected metals, such as Al [5], Cu [6] and Ni [7] into the films. The aluminium-induced crystallization (AIC) process exhabits several interesting effects, as it acts as the p-type dopant for Si and it can reduce the crystallization temperature to below 450 o C [5].…”