Transport and Interfacial Phenomena in Nanoscale Confined Laser Crystallization

Laser processing (sintering, melting, crystallization and ablation) of nanoscale materials has been extensively employed for electronics manufacturing including both integrated circuit and emerging printable electronics. Many applications in semiconductor devices require annealing step to fabricate high quality crystalline domains on substrates that may not intrinsically promote the growth of high crystalline films. The recent emergence of FinFETs (Fin-shaped Field Effect Transistor) and 3D Integrated Circuits (3D-IC) has inspired the study of crystallization of amorphous materials in nano/micro confined domains. Using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation, we study the characteristics of unseeded crystallization within nano/microscale confining domains. Firstly, it is demonstrated that unseeded crystallization can yield single crystal domains facilitated by the confinement effects. A phenomenological model has been developed and tailored by MD simulations, which was applied to quantitatively evaluate the effects of domain size and processing laser pulse width on single crystal formation. Secondly, to predict crystallization behaviors on confining walls, a thermodynamics integration scheme will be used to calculate interfacial energies of Si-SiO₂ interfaces.