Preparation of polycrystalline silicon thin films on glass by aluminiuminduced crystallization

Polycrystalline silicon (p-Si) is well-known as the high-efficency, low-cost, and most ideal material for manufacturing photovoltaic devices. In recent years, excimer-laser annealing (ELA), metal-induced crystallization (MIC) and solidphase crystallization (SPC) methods are employed to crystallize amorphous silicon (a-Si). In this paper, a cheap metal induced crystallization method of fabricating p-Si thin films on an ordinary glass substrate was investigated. In this synthesis process, a-Si thin film has been deposited onto glass substrates by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD), and p-Si thin films have been fabricated by aluminium-induced crystallization (AIC) under nitrogen ambient. The effects of annealing time, annealing temperature on the crystallization of a-Si were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. Our results indicate that annealing temperature over 300°C is necessary for crystallization of a-Si which preferred to orientation crystalline Si(111) and this preferred orientation becomes more obvious as increasing of annealing time and annealing temperature. Meanwhile, the longer annealing time can produce more a-Si crystallize completely under same aluminium thickness and annealing temperature.