Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Amorphous, implanted, Si layers have been melted by pulsed electron irradiation. Implanted As has been used as a marker for determining melt duration. Systematic differences between As diffusion in initially amorphous or crystalline Si are interpreted in terms of different enthalpies of melting between amorphous (1220 J/g) and crystalline (1790 J/g) Si. The amorphous Si layers melt and crystallize at significantly lower electron energies than those required to melt crystalline Si, indicating that amorphous Si melts at 1170K compared to 1685 K for crystalline Si. We have used these thermodynamic parameters to successfully predict some of the phenomena associated with the laser induced melting and crystallization of amorphous Si.