Abstract
Excimer laser irradiation is used to crystallize hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films. The resulting films show a stratified microstructure with a crystalline volume fraction of up to 90%. There is a range of excimer laser energy that can produce stratified nanocrystalline silicon with a Tauc gap as high as 2.2 eV. This value is greater than that of amorphous or crystalline silicon and is contrary to that predicted from the theoretical analysis of mixed-phase silicon thin films. The phenomenon is explained by employing transmission electron microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry, and the observed bandgap enhancement is associated with quantum confinement effects within the nanocrystalline silicon layers, rather than an impurity variation.