Si-nanostructures made by laser-annealing

A method to produce homogeneous arrays of stripes or dots of microcrystalline silicon without the use of masks is presented. Periods down to 210 nm and feature sizes less than 100 nm are demonstrated. For the first time, laser fragmentation has been used to generate these patterns. Electron mobilities of 12 cm²/V s were achieved at an electron density of 4.7 × 10²⁰ cm^-3. Different laser-annealing processes were applied to reduce stress in the obtained structures and to increase the crystallite size. Additionally oxidation reduces the lateral dimensions of the structures, as an approach towards the large-area preparation of Si quantum dots and wires.