Nickel ͑Ni͒-induced crystallization of amorphous silicon has been studied with a novel two-step annealing process for reducing the long annealing time and improving the structural and electrical properties of polycrystalline silicon ͑poly-Si͒ films. Two-step annealing is a combination of rapid thermal annealing ͑RTA͒ and conventional furnace annealing ͑CFA͒. In the two-step annealing, RTA was employed at 550°C for 10 min and CFA was used at 500°C for various annealing times ͑5,10,15, and 20 h͒ in N 2 ambient. The poly-Si films prepared using two-step annealing have a more uniform, larger grain size and MILC rate compared to those prepared by CFA alone. Additionally, poly-Si films prepared by RTA plus 5 h of CFA exhibit a lower resistivity of 0.42 ϫ 10 5 ⍀-cm than those processed with 25 h of CFA.Polycrystalline silicon ͑poly-Si͒ is an attractive material for use in large-area electronics, such as thin film transistors ͑TFTs͒, solar cells, and image sensors, because of its high carrier mobility compared with amorphous silicon ͑a-Si͒. Several crystallization techniques, such as solid phase crystallization ͑SPC͒ 1,2 and laser annealing of a-Si, 3,4 have been employed to obtain high-quality poly-Si. Laser annealing is currently thought to be the most preferable method for the fabrication of low-temperature poly-Si TFTs. However, it still has many unsolved problems such as uniformity and manufacturing cost. Although SPC is a relatively inexpensive process, the processing temperature of around 600°C still exceeds the upper temperature limit of conventional glass substrates.Recently, the metal-induced crystallization ͑MIC͒ of a-Si has been intensively investigated. It is well known that the crystallization temperature of a-Si can be lowered by the addition of certain metals such as Al, 5 Au, 6 and Ni. 7 Furthermore, selective deposition of Ni 8,9 on a-Si films induced crystallization of a-Si outside of the metal coverage. This approach has been called metal-induced lateral crystallization ͑MILC͒ and can avoid the direct introduction of Ni into the Si films outside of the Ni coverage region.However, both the MIC and MILC techniques require too much annealing time to enhance the grain size and MILC rate. The annealing time of MIC and MILC consists of an incubation time and a characteristic crystallization time. The incubation time is the time required to reach a steady-state nucleation rate from the initial state. The incubation time is several hours in conventional furnace annealing ͑CFA͒, depending on the annealing temperature and the initial state of the metal/a-Si structure. To reduce the long annealing time of crystallization for a-Si, it is necessary to reduce the incubation time for nucleation.In this work, we propose a novel annealing method, a combination of rapid thermal annealing ͑RTA͒ and CFA. This method, which we term two-step annealing, could obtain high-quality poly-Si films and reduce the annealing time for crystallization of a-Si. Many studies had evidenced the efficiency of RTA. 10,11 A higher MILC rate...