Experimental Investigation of the Solid/Liquid Interface of Thin Films During Thermal Processing - Creativity Award

电子材料加工中最具挑战性的问题之一是在绝缘膜(SiO_2)上形成薄的(1微米)单晶硅薄膜。由此产生的产品是绝缘体上硅系统(SOI)，可用作许多高级应用的构建块。通过化学气相沉积等成熟的技术，可以很容易地制造多晶硅薄膜。挑战在于将其以单晶的形式重新结晶。拟议的研究计划：(1)验证制造单晶的困难是否主要是由热传递驱动的；(2)尝试建立热传递技术，以成功地以单晶的形式再结晶薄硅薄膜。如果成功，这些技术将提高微电子行业中使用的SOI薄膜的质量。

One of the most challenging problems in electronic materials processing is the creation of a thin (1um) single crystal silicon film on an insulating film (SiO2). The resulting product is a silicon-on-insulator system (SOI) and can be used as the building block for many advanced applications. Through well established techniques such as chemical vapor deposition, a polycrystalline silicon film can be easily created. The challenge is to recrystallize it in the form of a single crystal. %%% The proposed research plans to: (1) verify if the difficulties of creating a single crystal are primarily driven by heat transfer; and (2) try to establish heat transfer techniques to successfully recrystallize thin silicon films in the form of single crystals. If successful, these techniques will improve the quality of SOI films used in the microelectronic industry.