Effect of Pulse Repetition Rate on the Properties of Pulse Laser Deposited SiO<inf>2</inf> Thin Films

Abstract

In thin films prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique a variety of deposition parameters belonging to different categories such as laser pulse energy, pulse repetition rate, and so on which are parameters that belong to the properties of the laser which on adjustment can lead to desired properties of thin films. We present here the effect of pulse repetition rate on the properties of thin films prepared using pulsed laser technique. SiO 2 thin films find a wide range of applications in electronics, in this work four samples of SiO2 thin film were produced by pulsed laser deposition technique using 10 pulses with pulse energy of 100 mj and varied repetition rate of 2, 3, 4 and 5 Hz. The target to substrate distance and angle being fixed to 2 cm and 45o respectively. The film thickness was measured by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) measurement tool, and the transmission spectrum at certain wavelengths for each film was recorded. SiO2 thin films transmission data and the measured film thicknesses were used to calculate their optical properties. The results showed that increasing the pulse repetition rate results in an increase of the film thickness and the morphology of the films becomes higher dense and nonsmooth, also the optical properties shown to be affected by the thickness variation and hence by the repetition rate.