Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
Arrays of single crystal thin film silicon islands were prepared on fused quartz substrates by a zone melting recrystallization of bridged island patterns of poly-Si. A scanning graphite strip heater technique was used, with the Si islands connected (“bridged”) in the scanning direction by narrow Si strips. These strips generated a self-seeding effect in the crystalline growth, and the recrystallized Si islands were good quality SOI with <100> orientation as shown by x-ray and etch-pit analysis. Protuberances, film cracking and impurity segregation were greatly suppressed in this bridged island SOI as compared to defects normally observed in recrystallized continuous Si films on quartz. MOSFETs were fabricated in the SOI islands, using n-channel enhancement mode devices with a gate length of 5μm and a gate width of 50μm. The average carrier mobility measured on these SOI devices was 470 ± 70 cm2/V.s, which was twice as high as the mobility measured in MOSFETs fabricated concurrently in SOS. Good MOSFETs in the SOI islands showed a switching ratio of about 107 at 6V and a leakage of less than 2pA/μm. These results indicate that high performance drive circuits for liquid crystal displays can be fabricated in SOI recrystallized from bridged island patterns on transparent quartz substrates.