TRANSIENT TEMPERATURE PROFILES IN SILICON FILMS DURING PULSED LASER ANNEALING

Transient temperature profiles have been studied theoretically in silicon film heated by a single shot of a laser light pulse for several substrate structures. The molten silicon region is very shallow and disappears completely within a few tens of ns in (poly)crystalline silicon. It exists for more than a few hundred ns in amorphous silicon and also in silicon films on an oxide substrate. In silicon/oxide/conductive-substrate structures, the sustaining time of the molten silicon region is shortened by thinning the oxide film. Numerical results are compared with approximate relations derived from a simple physical picture.