Crystalline silicon film is extremely important for low-cost, high performance Si-based devices, such as thin-film transistors and solar cells. Re- crystallization of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film is widely studied and used in various fields among others. The most used crystallization technologies of a-Si films are solid phase crystallization, metal induced crystallization, and laser crystallization. In applying to large-area manufacturing these techniques have their own problems, such as high process temperature, metal impurity, high cost, among others. Microwave heating of a material is to transfer the absorb microwave energy into heat. Our purpose of study is to make use of remote microwave irradiation incorporating a suitable susceptor, which can effectively focus microwave energy on silicon films, to crystallize a-Si film.
This study employs an elliptical microwave applicator which is able to focus microwave, to process a-Si placing near the field maximum. We demons- trated that microwave irradiation incorporating with SiC susceptor is able to crystallize amorphous silicon (a-Si) film on glass substrate at a low temperature of 460 oC within a short period of 600 s. The crystal structure is similar to those after furnace annealing at 700 oC for 12 hours. This method is extendable to fast-crystallize a-Si film on a remote and large-area basis, and very time- and energy-effective.
The other study was to demonstrate that microwave irradiation, 200 W, is able to fast-crystallize a-Si:H film using the susceptor of carbon-overcoat which contains graphite and carbon nano-tube. Nearly full crystallization is reached within 90 s. In the last example, we used the microwave irradiation (~ 400 W) incorporating multilayer structure films (C/a-Si/C) with SiC disk susceptor is able to crystallize and transfer poly-silicon pattern to other substrates. Besides, n- and p-doped a-Si films were also microwave crystallized to show better electrical performances than those of commercially available samples.
We elucidated the crystallization mechanisms for such a short processing time and at low observed temperatures. The reason of fast crystallization is attributed to the thermal energy from the susceptor which is heated under microwave irradiation. The a-Si is heated above a critical temperature where the dielectric properties of the heated a-Si, and enhanced nucleation of Si-crystallite due to atomic/dipole vibration, take place in response to microwave irradiation. The later is a non-thermal process occurred above a critical temperature in a-Si.

結晶矽薄膜是非常重要的低成本、高性能材料，大量用於如薄膜電晶體，太陽能電池。其中，再結晶型的非晶矽（a- Si）薄膜被廣泛研究和應用在各個領域中。習知之非晶矽膜再結晶法包括固相結晶法、金屬輔助層法與雷射結晶法等。這些技術應用到大面積非晶矽的結晶製造中各有其自身的問題，如加工溫度過高，金屬雜質含量過大，時間太長、成本過高等。本研究目的在於開發微波加熱法，利用微波助吸材，研究其對非晶矽薄膜結晶的效果。
這項研究採用了可聚焦微波的橢圓形微波系統，材料放置在系統中微波場的最大值區域。首先，我們證明了微波照射結合碳化矽微波助吸材可將在玻璃基板上之非晶矽（a- Si）薄膜在460 oC的低溫與短時間600秒內結晶。其次，我們證明了用碳化矽粉末助吸材在300 W微波照射下可使a-Si薄膜結晶，其退火時間縮短，結晶過程不超過100秒。所得晶體結構相似於以一般爐退火在700 oC、12小時後者。此方法可擴展到a-Si薄膜在遠端照射和大面積基礎上的快速結晶。
另一項研究表明，於200 W微波照射下，使用含有石墨和碳納米管的助吸材層，能夠快速將a-Si:H薄膜結晶。幾乎是90秒內可以達到完全結晶。通過這樣的特性，多層薄膜的結構（碳/非晶矽/碳）用碳化矽片材助吸材、以〜400 W微波照射，可以導致非晶矽結晶，並可將結晶後的圖樣轉移到異質的基材上。
最後，利用微波結晶迅速、均勻加熱和選擇性加熱特點，以摻雜之非晶矽薄膜作微波低溫結晶化，發現可以得到比商用者更佳之電性，尤以N型者其載子動率遠高於商用者。這驗證了微波結晶可應用於矽元件上。
本研究提出以助吸材配合微波照射，可以令非晶矽低溫快速結晶之機制。這主要是藉助於微波助吸材對微波的集中與吸收發熱效果，使非晶矽的溫度達到一個臨界值以上。這時非晶矽內部的結晶成核受到加速（熱效果），而且非晶矽內不對稱結構導致之電偶極也受到微波場激盪而共振（非熱效果），導致快速結晶。

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