Location control of crystal Si grain followed by excimer-laser melting of Si thin-films

We propose a new method to control the position of a crystal silicon grain following excimer-laser melting of a thin silicon (Si) film. The thickness of the thermal isolation layer underlying the Si film was locally decreased in order to make the temperature of molten-Si at a predetermined point lowest so as to initiate the nucleation preferentially from the position. A crystal silicon grain with a diameter of 1.2 mu m was located exactly at the predetermined position.