We propose a low-temperature laser annealing method of a underwater laser annealing (WLA) for polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) films. We performed crystallization to poly-Si films by laser irradiation in flowing deionized-water where KrF excimer laser was used for annealing. We demonstrated that the maximum value of maximum grain size of WLA samples was 1.5 lm, and that of the average grain size was 2.8 times larger than that of conventional laser annealing in air (LA) samples. Moreover, WLA forms poly-Si films which show lower conductivity and larger carrier life time attributed to fewer electrical defects as compared to LA poly-Si films. Thin film transistors (TFTs) have been generally used for pixel switching devices of active matrix-flat panel displays such as liquid crystal displays and organic light emitting diode displays. In particular, the polycrystalline silicon (polySi) TFT has greater field-effect mobility (>50 cm 2 /V s) [1][2][3][4] than other channel materials such as amorphous silicon (a-Si), oxide, and organic (<10 cm 2 /V s), and the p-channel TFT can be fabricated by using poly-Si because of its high hole mobility.5 Thus, the poly-Si has the applicability not only to the high-performance pixel switching devices but also to the driver circuit or memory, that is, the system-on-panel display 6 can be realized. In recent years, several studies have been conducted in order to achieve further low-temperature fabrication of poly-Si TFTs for the use of flexible plastic substrates.7-11 Poly-Si thin films are generally formed by excimer laser annealing (ELA) using a-Si films on the glass substrate as a starting material.1 However, laser crystallized poly-Si films still contain a huge amount of electrical defects and these electrical defects degrade the device performance.12,13 Inactivation treatment of electrical defects such as hydrogenation by forming gas annealing (FGA) is usually conducted after crystallization, but this process needs substrate temperature around 400 C 14 and this is too high to use the plastic substrates because the glass transition temperature of typical plastic films such as polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is lower than 160 C. Therefore, low-temperature annealing technique for the inactivation treatment is needed to realize poly-Si TFT fabrication on the plastic substrates. Here, we propose an underwater laser annealing (WLA): a laser annealing technique for low-temperature fabrication of poly-Si TFTs. We think that WLA could achieve low-temperature crystallization because of the cooling effect of the sample surface by additional thermal diffusion to flowing water. Moreover, it is expected that WLA has a capability for inactivation of electrical defects at the same time as crystallization. After pulse laser irradiation in water, a water vapor layer is generated on the Si surface where this water vapor contains some active species such as hydrogen, oxygen, and hydroxyl. H 2 O molecules will be chemically dissociated by heat energy, and electric...