A snapshot review on flash lamp annealing of semiconductor materials

Flash lamp annealing (FLA) is a non-equilibrium annealing method on the sub-second time scale which excellently meets the requirements of thin-film processing. FLA has already been used in microelectronics, mostly after ion implantation, to activate dopants, to recrystallize amorphous semiconductor layers, and to anneal out defects. Another field of application is the formation of silicide and germanide materials for contact fabrication. However, in the last twenty years, FLA has opened up new areas of application like thin films on glass, sensors, printed electronics, flexible electronics, energy materials, etc. For two years, the Helmholtz Innovation Blitzlab aims to transfer this technology to industry and application-related research. After a short introduction, a brief overview of FLA is given, discussing the advantages and challenges of this technology. The main part displays various examples from the literature and from our own research, in which FLA has been applied to semiconductors, namely to Si, Ge and GaN. In detail, the doping close to or even above the solubility limit of dopants, the crystallization of Ge during FLA, the formation of NiGe for contacts, and p-type doping in GaN are addressed.
 Graphical abstract