Patent ID: 7540921

Claim:
A crystallization apparatus, comprising: a phase modulation element configured to modulate a phase of outgoing light beams relative to incident light beams at a constant period; an illumination system configured to generate the incident light beams entering the phase modulation element; an image formation optical system provided on an outgoing radiation side of the phase modulation element, the image formation optical system being configured to provide a light intensity distribution of a pattern in which a light intensity is at a minimum at a central position and increases linearly towards a periphery in each unit area, for a focal plane; and a stage configured to support a substrate including a non-single crystal semiconductor film provided on an outgoing radiation side of the image formation optical system, wherein the phase modulation element includes a phase modulation unit optically smaller than a radius of a point spread distribution range of the image formation optical system to provide the light intensity distribution of the pattern in which each unit area differs at the constant period, and the outgoing light beams which repeat the light intensity distribution of the pattern, are imaged on a non-monocrsytalline semiconductor film to melt an irradiation area, to grow crystals, by generating a crystalline nucleus where the intensity of light is at the minimum in the light intensity distribution of the pattern, along a direction in which the light intensity increases, and wherein the phase modulation unit, when the image formation optical system has a homogeneous circular pupil and no aberration, has the following relationship between the point spread function ASF of the image formation optical system and the pupil function: ASF ( x,y )∝2 j 1 (2π/λ· NA·r )/(2 π/λ·NA·r ) where r=(x 2 +y 2 ) 1/2 , J 1 indicates a Bessel function, λ indicates a wavelength of light beams, and NA indicates an image side numeral aperture of the image formation optical system.