Excimer Laser-Annealing of Amorphous Silicon Layers

This paper describes a one-dimensional model of excimer laser-annealing of amorphous silicon layers which are irradiated with a pulsed KrF excimer laser. For realisation of the model in COMSOL Multiphysics, the application mode heat transfer in solids is used. The model predicts a melt threshold for the energy density of the laser of Eth = 88.5 mJ/cm. It also predicts a linear increase of the melt duration with a slope of approximately ∂tm/∂E = 625 ns cm J and a decrease of the onset time to melt from ton = 28 ns down to some nanoseconds with enhanced energy density of the laser. Concerning the melt depth, the simulations return a linear slope of ∂dm/∂E = 43 μm cm J with increasing energy density. All these results are in excellent agreement with the results of our experiments and therefore, the validity of our model is confirmed.