A major cause of degradations in polycrystalline-silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) fabricated by Ni metal-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) is known to be due to the presence of Ni silicides in the channel region. In this letter, we proposed a structure for the reduction of Ni silicides in the MILC region. Also, the electrical properties of poly-Si TFTs which were fabricated with the structure were investigated. It was found that the field-effect mobility and the leakage current of p-channel Ni seed MILC TFTs is significantly improved compared to TFTs fabricated by conventional MILC process. (c) 2007 The Electrochemical Society.