Comparison of Ni-metal induced lateral crystallization thin-film transistors fabricated by rapid thermal annealing and conventional furnace annealing at 565 °C

Two annealing methods, pulse rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and conventional furnace annealing (CFA), were used to fabricate nickel-induced lateral crystallization (NILC) polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) at 565 °C. It was found that the growth rate of RTA-POLY was 5 times higher than that of CFA-POLY. The performance of RTA-thin-film transistors (TFTs) was not as good as that of CFA-TFT. RTA-TFT showed lower drain current, higher threshold voltage, larger subthreshold swing, lower electron mobility, and lower leakage current than CFA-TFT.