<title>Pulsed-laser ablation vs. pulsed ion beam evaporation for applications to materials science</title>

Abstract

Applications of ablation plasma to materials science have been carried out using pulsed laser ablation and pulsed ion beam evaporation. Although basic idea is similar each other, the energy absorption mechanism of the two processes differs a lot, yielding big difference such as in the preparation of thin films. Compared with the pulsed laser ablation, the pulsed ion beam ablation has an advantage of higher plasma density inherent to huge energy density on targets. Two examples will be shown for the preparation of hard films, for example films by pulsed laser ablation and B<SUB>4</SUB>C films by pulsed ion beam evaporation.