Electroless plating Ni induced crystallization of amorphous silicon thin films

There is a great demand to fabricate polycrystalline silicon films at low temperatures. A metal-induced crystallization method can significantly decrease the crystallization temperature of amorphous silicon (a-Si). Metal thin films are generally deposited on a-Si by the physical vapor deposition method followed by crystallization at a temperature lower than 600°C. In this study, a faster and more inexpensive electroless Ni plating method was introduced. It was found that Si crystallinity increased with Ni plating time, but dropped when the time reached 10 min. When the plating time was less than 5 min, all of the poly-Si became needlelike with preferred orientation parallel to the substrate.