The pulsed KrF excimer laser annealing of silicon films for solar cell with EBEP-CVD and LP-CVD was studied theoretically and experimentally. Three-dimensional thermal diffusion equation for microcrystalline and amorphous silicon was solved by using the finite difference methods. The results of our heat-flow simulation of laser re-crystallization in a laser irradiation with 50 ns pulse duration almost agree with the experimental results in recrystallization depth of 0.7 mum for microcrystalline silicon (EBEP-CVD) and 0.4 mum for amorphous silicon (LP-CVD) in a single pulse excimer laser annealing. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.