Growth kinetics and crystallographic properties of polysilicon thin films formed by aluminium-induced crystallization

Aluminium-induced crystallization of amorphous silicon (a-Si) allows the formation of polysilicon layers at low temperature (<577 °C) on non-Si substrates such as glass or ceramics. The aim of this work is two-folds: (i) to study the growth kinetics of the polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) film, (ii) to identify defects present inside the isolated grains grown by the electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) analysis technique and to discuss the effect of the annealing temperature on the crystalline orientation and defect density. The analysis shows that major defects present in such polysilicon are twins and low-angle boundaries. The comparison of optical microscopy and EBSD maps shows that the increased grain size observed with diminishing the annealing temperature is compensated by an increase in the twin density. A link is found between (1 0 0)-oriented grains and “absence” of twins.