A universal value of effective annealing time for rapid oxide nucleation and growth under pulsed ultraviolet laser irradiation

The effective annealing times (t(eff)) for nucleating various oxides from an amorphous matrix under nanosecond pulsed laser irradiation have been determined. The oxides, which had perovskite, bixbyite, anatase, and pyrochlore structures, showed similar t(eff) values for crystal nucleation of around 60 ns. This indicates that the effective annealing time is a good universal value for evaluating pulsed laser-induced oxide nucleation. Time-resolved resistance measurements of tin-doped In2O3 thin films under pulsed laser irradiation showed that crystal nucleation and rapid growth proceeded spontaneously with an instantaneous temperature rise.