ABSTRACT
Metal-induced crystallization (MIC), particularly aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC), has attracted great attention as a technique to prepare high-quality, large-grain silicon films from an amorphous silicon (a-Si) film precursor at a lower annealing temperature below the eutectic temperature of the Al/a-Si system (<577°C) on lowcost foreign substrates like glass or metallic foils. In this chapter, a brief explanation on the fundamental physics behind MIC, typically AIC of a-Si as precursor films, has been presented. Recent findings concerning a-Si films crystallized by the AIC process and their ultimate utilization for solar cell fabrication as a seed layer are also described.
