This study concerns optically induced crystal growth of thin semiconductor films on amorphous insulators. Growth of semiconductor films on insulators enables the fabrication of high-performance electronic devices. Melting and recrystallization of such layers by scanning light sources is used to improve their electrical and crystalline properties. However, the development of this technique has been limited by a lack of understanding of the associated phase change phenomena. In order to examine the effects of the light source intensity distribution, total power and motion, both experimental and theoretical investigations will be conducted. Polysilicon will be used as the basic material, but work on compound semiconductors, such as GaAs, will also be initiated. Moreover, many aspects of the study can be directly applied to thin metal and amorphous semiconductor film thermal processing. The primary objectives of this project are; (1) to develop an experimental method for in-situ temperature measurement at the microscale, by acquiring the processing surface reflectivity data, (2) to numerically simulate thin film melting by accurately tracking the position of the moving phase boundary, (3) to examine the local crystal details by direct observations of the growth of interfacial microstructures, microscopy characterization, and theoretical analysis, and (4) to resolve the mechanism of radiatively induced in homogeneous film melting by experimental observation.
