Kinetics of laser-induced low-temperature crystallization of amorphous silicon

A brief report on experimental and theoretical studies of the kinetics of the laser-induced crystallization (LIC) in undoped amorphous hydrogenated silicon is presented. It is shown that the LIC occurs at a substantially lower temperature and occurs at this temperature much faster compared to the thermal crystallization in a furnace. A nanoscopic kinetic electron-related model of the LIC is presented. The model explains the experimental observations as the integral effect of a huge amount of nanoscale picosecond atomic and electronic reconstructions leading to more stable material states which are generated by electron-assisted short-lived (picosecond) large energy fluctuations in nanometer material regions. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics