Laser reactive ablation deposition of titanium carbide films

Abstract

Titanium carbide films were deposited on silicon wafers by XeCl (308 nm) excimer laser ablation of titanium in low pressure (10 −3 mbar) methane atmosphere. Series of 10 000 pulses at the repetition rate of 8 Hz were directed to the target surface. The fluence was set at about 5 J cm−2. Pulse duration was about 30 ns. The deposited films were characterized by different techniques (X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry).