Patent ID: 7345746

Claim:
A method of in-situ monitoring of a crystallization state in annealing processing by an energy line irradiation for crystallization of a thin film or promotion of the crystallization, comprising: simultaneously irradiating with a monitor light at least a plurality of monitoring places of said thin film in a region having a predetermined area during or after said energy line irradiation, said monitor light being for monitoring of the crystallization state of said thin film; and measuring a temporal change in the intensity of monitor light reflected from an upper surface or an underside of said thin film, or transmitted through said thin film, as a light intensity distribution related to the positions of said monitoring places, wherein said measuring step comprises: receiving at least one of the reflected light or the transmitted light from said thin film, and generating an electron corresponding to the received light by photoelectric conversion; passing the generated electron through a field which changes with time; receiving the passed electron for forming a projected image on a display screen, the image corresponding to the passed electron; and measuring the temporal change of the intensity distribution of said projected image to provide information concerning the crystallization state of the thin film subject to irradiation.