Hexagonal silicon formation by pulsed laser beam annealing

Abstract

A transmission electron microscopy study on the new hexagonal silicon formed by pulsed laser beam annealing was carried out. It has been demonstrated through the use of a high-resolution transmission electron micrography and selected area electron diffraction patterns that when an amorphous silicon thin film was crystallized by a pulsed laser beam, the resulting polycrystalline matrix contained crystals which had either a diamond cubic crystal structure or a new hexagonal crystal structure with unit cell dimensions a = 0.382 nm, c = 1.024 nm, and c/a = 2.68.