The fact that single-crystal Si would make an ideal material for thin-film transistor devices has long been recognized. Despite this awareness, a viable method by which such a material could be directly produced on a glass substrate has never been formulated. In this letter, it is shown experimentally that location-controlled single-crystal Si regions on a SiO2 surface can be obtained in a glass-substrate compatible manner, via excimer-laser-based sequential lateral solidification of thin Si films using a beamlet shape that self-selects and extends a single grain over an arbitrarily large area. This is accomplished by controlling the locations, shape, and extent of melting induced by the incident excimer-laser pulses, in such a manner as to induce interface-contour-affected sequential super-lateral growth of crystals, during which the tendency of grain boundaries to align approximately orthogonal to the solidifying interface is systematically exploited.

This paper reviews a particular form of pulsed‐laser‐based thin‐film crystallization method referred to as controlled super‐lateral growth (C‐SLG). By systematically manipulating and controlling the locations, shapes, and extent of melting induced by the incident laser pulses, the C‐SLG approach — notably in a version referred to as sequential lateral solidification (SLS) — can lead to realization of a variety of microstructurally designed crystalline Si films with low structural defect densities, including 1. large‐grained and grain‐boundary‐location controlled polycrystalline films, 2. directionally solidified microstructures, or 3. location‐controlled single‐crystal regions.

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