Laser heating of semiconductors—effect of carrier diffusion in nonlinear dynamic heat transport process

An analytic theory is presented to describe the nonlinear dynamic heat transport process in a semiconductor irradiated by a pulsed laser beam. The input rate of laser energy to the lattice is sensitively influenced by the ambipolar diffusion of the dense, laser-produced excess charge carriers. Additionally, the high heating rate of the laser beam significantly changes the material transport coefficients during the pulse. This nonlinear laser beam-solid interaction is examined from the viewpoint of the transport process, using a parametrized perturbation technique in Green′s function formulation. An explicit, analytical solution of the lattice temperature rise is presented and the threshold pulse energy for the onset of surface melting for the case of amorphous Si is calculated as a function of laser beam intensity as well as the carrier diffusion length. Our results are compared with both the melting and nonthermal models for laser annealing.