Using Chemical Oxide Layer to Getter Nickel inside Nickel-Metal-Induced Lateral Crystallization Polycrystalline Silicon

Nickel contamination inside nickel-metal-induced lateral crystallization (NILC) polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) is an issue to fabricate high performance thin film transistors (TFTs). A simple and effective method for gettering Ni was proposed with ~5-nm-thick chemical oxide (chem-SiO2) as the etching stop layer, and 100-nm-thick amorphous Si as the gettering layer. Ni-gettering process was annealed at 550oC in N2 ambient for only 12 h to considerably reduce Ni-metal impurity within the NILC poly-Si film