• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.4 s.287
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• pp.230-234
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• 2006

Metal-Induced Crystallization (MIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) using aluminum and nickel as catalysts were performed with a variation of metal thickness and temperature. Raman results showed that the crystallization of a-Si depended on the thickness of aluminum while not on nickel. Nickel that forms silicide nodules during annealing simply catalyzed the formation of crystalline silicon (c-Si) while aluminum was consumed and transferred during MIC, which resulted in more complex microstructural characteristics. Crystalline silicons after NIC had elongated shape with a twin along the long axis. Morphological change after Aluminum-Induced Crystallization (AIC) showed more equiaxial grains. The nucleation and growth mechanism of AIC was discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.26-35
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• 2024

Aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) as a route to reduce the fabrication cost and to obtain polycrystalline Si (p-Si) thin-film of large grain size is a promising alternative of single-crystalline (s-Si) substrate or p-Si thin-film obtained by conventional methods such as solid phase crystallization (SPC) and laser-induced crystallization (LIC). As the AIC process occurs at the interface between a-Si and Al thin-films, there are various process and interface parameters. Also, it directly means that there is a certain parametric window to obtain p-Si of large grain size having uniform crystal orientation. In this article, we investigate the effect of the various process and interface parameters to obtain p-Si of large grain size and uniform crystal orientation from the literature review. We also suggest the potential use of the p-Si as a virtual substrate for the growth of various compound semiconductors in a form of low-dimension as well as thin-film as a way for their monolithic integration on Si.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.65-72
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• 2012

Aluminum induced crystallization of amorphous silicon was attempted by the aluminum substrate. To avoid the layer exchange between silicon and aluminum layer, Ni layer was deposited between these two layers by sputtering. To obtain the bigger grain of the crystalline silicon, wet blasted silica layer was employed as windows between the nickel and a-Si layer. Ni obtained after the annealing treatment at $520^{\circ}C$ was found to be a promising material for the diffusion barrier between silicon and aluminum. One way to obtain bigger grain of crystalline silicon layer applicable to solar cell of higher performance was envisioned in this investigation.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.50-53
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• 2019

In this study, polycrystalline silicon thin film useful for the solar cells was fabricated by AIC(Aluminum Induced Crystallization) process. A diffusing barrier for this process is prepared with $Al_2O_3$. For the maximization of the grain size of the polycrystalline silicon, a selective blasting of the $Al_2O_3$ diffusing barrier was conducted before annealing treatment. The heat treatment for the activation of the amorphous-Si (a-Si) layer was carried out with Rapid Thermal Annealing (RTA) process. Crystallization of the a-Si layer was analyzed with XRD. It was confirmed that a-Si was crystallized at $500^{\circ}C$ and the silicon crystal is observed to be formed and the grain size of the polycrystalline silicon was observed to be $15.9{\mu}m$.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.190-194
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• 2012

The formation of high-quality polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) on relatively low cost substrate has been an important issue in the development of thin film solar cells. Poly-Si seed layers were fabricated by an inverse aluminum-induced crystallization (I-AIC) process and the properties of the resulting layer were characterized. The I-AIC process has an advantage of being able to continue the epitaxial growth without an Al layer removing process. An amorphous Si precursor layer was deposited on Corning glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering system with Ar plasma. Then, Al thin film was deposited by thermal evaporation. An $SiO_2$ diffusion barrier layer was formed between Si and Al layers to control the surface orientation of seed layer. The crystallinity of the poly-Si seed layer was analyzed by Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The grain size and orientation of the poly-Si seed layer were determined by electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD) method. The prepared poly-Si seed layer showed high volume fraction of crystalline Si and <100> orientation. The diffusion barrier layer and processing temperature significantly affected the grain size and orientation of the poly Si seed layer. The shorter oxidation time and lower processing temperature led to a better orientation of the poly-Si seed layer. This study presents the formation mechanism of a poly seed layer by inverse aluminum-induced crystallization.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.59.1-59.1
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• 2010

Aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) is studied with the structure of a glass/Al/$SiO_2$/a-Si, in which the $SiO_2$ layer has micron-sized laser holes in the stack. An oxide layer between aluminum and a-Si thin films plays a significant role in the metal-induced crystallization (MIC) process determining the properties such as grain size and preferential orientation. In our case, the crystallization of a-Si is carried out only through the key hole because the $SiO_2$ layer is substantially thick enough to prevent a-Si from contacting aluminum. The crystal growth is successfully realized toward the only vertical direction, resulting a crystalline silicon grain with a size of $3{\sim}4{\mu}m$ under the hole. Lateral growth seems to be not occurred. For the AIC experiment, the glass/Al/$SiO_2$/a-Si stacks were prepared where an Al layer was deposited on glass substrate by DC sputter, $SiO_2$ and a-Si films by PECVD method, respectively. Prior to the a-Si deposition, a $30{\times}30$ micron-sized hole array with a diameter of $1{\sim}2{\mu}m$ was fabricated utilizing the femtosecond laser pulses to induce the AIC process through the key holes and the prepared workpieces were annealed in a thermal chamber for 2 hours. After heat treatment, the surface morphology, grain size, and crystal orientation of the polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) film were evaluated by scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, and energy dispersive spectrometer. In conclusion, we observed that the vertical crystal growth was occurred in the case of the crystallization of a-Si with aluminum by the MIC process in a small area. The pc-Si grain grew under the key hole up to a size of $3{\sim}4{\mu}m$ with the workpiece.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.254-261
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• 2010

Polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) films are fabricated and characterized for application to pc-Si thin film solar cells as a seed layer. The amorphous silicon films are crystallized by the aluminum-induced layer exchange (ALILE) process with a structure of glass/Al/$Al_2O_3$/a-Si using various thicknesses of $Al_2O_3$ layers. In order to investigate the effects of the oxide layer on the crystallization of the amorphous silicon films, such as the crystalline film detects and the crystal grain size, the $Al_2O_3$ layer thickness arc varied from native oxide to 50 nm. As the results, the defects of the poly crystalline films are increased with the increase of $Al_2O_3$ layer thickness, whereas the grain size and crystallinity are decreased. In this experiments, obtained the average pc-Si sub-grain size was about $10\;{\mu}m$ at relatively thin $Al_2O_3$ layer thickness (${\leq}$ 16 nm). The preferential orientation of pc-Si sub-grain was <111>.