Advanced simulations on laser annealing: explosive crystallization and phonon transport corrections

Abstract

Current semiconductor device manufacturing often needs the integration of annealing process steps with a low thermal budget; and, among them, pulsed laser annealing (LA) is a reliable option. Consequently, the use of LA specialized Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) models is emerging as a support for the development of this particular heating methods. Anyway, models already implemented in academic or commercial packages usually consider some approximations which can lead to inaccurate predictions if they are applied in rather common configurations of nano-device: i.e. structures with nm wide elements where amorphous pockets are also present. In particular, in these cases non-diffusive thermal transport and explosive crystallization could take place. Here we present upgrades of the LA TCAD models allowing the simulation of these phenomena. We will demonstrate that these models can be reliably integrated in the current TCAD packages discussing the key features of the numerical solutions features in some particular cases.