Polycrystalline silicon films were fabricated by aluminium-induced crystallisation (AIC) of aluminium/silicon bi-layer on thermally oxidised Si (t-SiO2) substrates. The aluminium layer was deposited onto the substrates by electron beam evaporation. Here we investigate if the properties of the silicon precursor film influence the AIC layer exchange process. The silicon layer was deposited by different methods namely plasma enhanced-CVD and DC magnetron sputtering which led to different crystallinity including amorphous and nano (micro) crystalline phases as analysed by Raman spectroscopy. We have investigated the silicon nucleation rate vs. the annealing parameters and the deposited silicon structure. The resulting poly-Si films were analysed by optical and scanning electron microscopy looking to the grain size, presence of Si islands and thermal budget (temperature, time). (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.