Abstract
Amorphous chalcogenide thin films are widely studied due to their enhanced properties and extensive applications. Here, we have studied amorphous Ga-Sb-Se chalcogenide thin films prepared by magnetron co-sputtering, via laser ablation quadrupole ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Furthermore, the stoichiometry of the generated clusters was determined which gives information about individual species present in the plasma plume originating from the interaction of amorphous chalcogenides with high energy laser pulses. Seven different compositions of thin films (Ga content 7.6–31.7 at. %, Sb content 5.2–31.2 at. %, Se content 61.2–63.3 at. %) were studied and in each case about ~50 different clusters were identified in positive and ~20–30 clusters in negative ion mode. Assuming that polymers can influence the laser desorption (laser ablation) process, we have used parafilm as a material to reduce the destruction of the amorphous network structure and/or promote the laser ablation synthesis of heavier species from those of lower mass. In this case, many new and higher mass clusters were identified. The maximum number of (40) new clusters was detected for the Ga-Sb-Se thin film containing the highest amount of antimony (31.2 at. %). This approach opens new possibilities for laser desorption ionization/laser ablation study of other materials. Finally, for selected binary and ternary clusters, their structure was calculated by using density functional theory optimization procedure.
Highlights
Chalcogenide glasses are fascinating materials due to their excellent properties and wide applications[1] such as photolithography, holography, for optical switching, laser written waveguides, photonic crystals, optical phase change memories, etc.[2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The morphology of the thin layers surface is of good quality as shown by an example of scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph given in Supplementary Fig. S1
The Ga-Sb-Se thin films of different compositions fabricated via rf magnetron co-sputtering were characterized by laser ablation (LA) Time-of-Flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) in both, positive and negative ion modes
Summary
Chalcogenide glasses (in bulk, fiber, and thin film forms) are fascinating materials due to their excellent properties and wide applications[1] such as photolithography, holography, for optical switching, laser written waveguides, photonic crystals, optical phase change memories, etc.[2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The most commonly used deposition methods are pulsed laser deposition[15,16], radio-frequency magnetron sputtering[17,18,19], thermal evaporation[20], chemical vapor deposition[21,22], etc Nowadays, these methods are used to prepare high-quality thin films from different binary, ternary, or quaternary chalcogenide glass systems. The Ga-Sb-Se chalcogenide glasses and thin films can be considered as a promising alternative for germanium containing ones; these materials and their properties are reported in the literature only rarely
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
