Femtosecond laser beam in interaction with materials for thin film deposition

Abstract

In recent years Pulsed-Laser Deposition (PLD) has became increasingly popular as a viable deposition process for numerous materials. To overcome the main drawback of this method (macroscopic particles on the surface of the films), femtosecond (fs) lasers have been thought to be an ideal tool to obtain high quality thin films. However, it appeared that the nature of films grown by fs PLD strongly depends on the material and growth conditions. Indeed droplets are often observed evidencing the presence of violent thermal effects during the fs PLD process. In addition, the films are generally constituted by the random stacking of clusters in the 10-100 nm range that may be interesting for applications especially in the field of sensors and catalysis. In this paper, the experimental conditions leading to the formation of films composed of cluster piles without droplets will be presented. The results will be discussed as well as the possible explanations of the formation of clusters during fs PLD at the light of the literature produced in this field.