Cinnabar means to gild silver and gold to objects) "the toxic properties of mercury were well known. It was dangerous to those who mined and processed cinnabar, it caused shaking, loss of sense, and death. Data suggest that mercury was retorted from cinnabar and the workers were exposed to the toxic mercury fumes." Overexposure to mercury, mercurialism, was seen as an occupational disease to the ancient Romans: "Mining in the Spanish cinnabar mines of Almadén, southwest of Madrid, was regarded as being akin to a death sentence due to the shortened life expectancy of the miners, who were slaves or convicts."
Metal-induced crystallization on some area of the a-Si. Upon annealing, crystallization starts from the portion of a-Si which is covered by metal and proceeds laterally. Unlike MIC process, where metal contamination in the obtained polysilicon is relatively high, the laterally crystallized silicon in MILC process contains very small amount of metal contamination. The crystallization speed is low, but is adequate for applications such as fabrication of thin film transistors. In this case, metal is deposited on the source/drain area of the transistor and the channel is laterally crystallized. It has been also shown that applying an electric field increases the speed of