Crystallization by excimer-laser annealing (ELA) for hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films with low hydrogen content (C-H) prepared by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD) was systematically studied. From optical microscopy images, no hydrogen bubbling was observed during ELA, even without a dehydrogenation process. As the laser energy density was increased to 300 mJ cm(-2), the full width at half-maximum of the Raman signal from the crystalline phase decreased to approximately 4 cm(-1). This value is almost equal to or even smaller than that reported for polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) films prepared from plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) a-Si:H films by ELA so far. The average grain size, estimated from scanning electron microscopy, was approximately 500 nm for C-H of 1.3 at.%. On the other hand, the grain size of poly-Si films prepared from PECVD a-SM films with a dehydrogenation process was only 200 nm. The technique using Cat-CVD films is expected to be used for fabrication of low-temperature high-mobility thin-film transistors. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.