Formation of nanostructures upon laser ablation of a binary Six(SiO2)1-x mixture

Abstract

The formation efficiency of fractal nanostructures is studied experimentally depending on the composition of the binary silicon–silica mixture during evaporation by millisecond laser pulse. The influence of percolation on the efficiency of nanostructure formation in a laser plume is discovered. It is found that the efficiency is maximal near the critical densities of atoms in the plasma, which correspond both to the three-dimensional and two-dimensional percolation. The dependences of the effective temperatures of the laser plasma and the intensity of spectral lines on the target composition are presented.