RAMAN-MICROPROBE STUDY OF STRESS AND CRYSTAL ORIENTATION IN LASER-CRYSTALLIZED SILICON

The spatial variation of stress and crystal orientation in laser-crystallized silicon-on-insulator films has been determined using the Raman-microprobe technique. The spatial resolution achieved is better than 1-mu-m. The phonon shift relative to unstressed silicon is in the range of - 1.5 cm-1 which corresponds to a tensile stress of 380 MPa and is in good agreement with theoretical analysis. Using a laser plasma line as an online reference, the peak position of the phonon signal has been measured with a resolution better than +/- 0.02 cm-1. Our results also show a 4-degrees-backward tilt of the crystal orientation along a crystallization path length of 90-mu-m. This has been determined using a new polarization sensitive intensity-monitoring method on cross-cut specimens which features an angular resolution of +/- 1-degrees independent of surface roughness.