Tensile-Strained Single-Crystal Si Film on Insulator by Epitaxially Seeded and Laser-Induced Lateral Crystallization

Tensile-strained single-crystal silicon films on insulator islands have been grown from Si wafer substrates by a process combining selective epitaxial growth (SEG) and pulsed laser crystallization. An amorphous Si film on an insulator island is completely melted by a single excimer laser pulse, leading to the solidification of the molten Si seeded from epitaxially grown single-crystal Si regions. Analyses of the resulting microstructures reveal that the laterally crystallized film is single-crystalline. A tensile strain of up to 8.8×10 -3 within the crystallized region was measured by Raman spectroscopy. The tensile-strained Si film has potential applications in high-performance devices for three-dimensionally stacked integrated circuits.