| Sequential Lateral Solidification (SLS) is a flexible pulsed-laser-based thin-film crystallization method that can produce highly-uniform and low-defect-density crystalline Si films on the glass and plastic substrates that are used in large-area electronics.; In this work, we begin with an investigation into controlled lateral solidification of thin Si films induced by single-pulse excimer-laser irradiation. This process is evaluated in detail as it forms the basis of the SLS process. The primary sections of the dissertation deal with two specific embodiments of SLS, referred to as two-shot SLS and dot-SLS, both of which represent particularly effective ways to efficiently obtain controlled and optimized microstructures.; Two-shot SLS yields uniform polycrystalline Si films having a periodic distribution of location-manipulated grain-boundaries, and corresponds to the most efficient way of implementing SLS. The parameter space of the method and the resulting microstructures are thoroughly investigated, and guidelines for producing optimized two-shot materials are provided. We also propose and demonstrate a device tilt-engineering scheme to addresses the potential device non-uniformity problem that could arise when the devices are randomly placed on these materials.; The dot-SLS process yields large (∼5mum) location-controlled Si islands that are entirely free of random high-angle grain-boundaries in ∼ 3 to 4 laser pulses. The orientation, morphological, and microstructural analyses of the resulting islands reveal that (1) no crystallographic textures are obtained, (2) the primary planar defects found within the islands can be classified as having a Sigma-value of 3 in the coincident-site-lattice model, (3) the islands have anisotropic grain shapes suggesting that growth proceeds with a (111) faceted interface and (4) the defect densities are dependent on crystallographic orientation. Based on these observations and additional considerations, we propose and demonstrate a scheme, referred to as Hybrid-SLS, for forming orientation- and location-controlled single-crystal islands and show that SOI-quality Si films can be obtained. The resulting (100) single-crystal Si islands correspond to the highest-quality materials obtained to date on glass substrates. |
