Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
We report a new excimer laser annealing method by employing selectively floating a-Si active layer structure in order to increase the grain size of poly-Si film. The floating a-Si region blocks the heat conduction into the underlying substrate due to high thermal-insulating property of an air so that the lateral temperature gradient is successfully induced by the proposed simple air-gap structure. Our experimental results show that large grains were grown in the lateral direction from the edge to the center of the floating active region. The large grains exceeding 4 m were successfully obtained with only one laser irradiation.