Thin Films Formation of Organic Polymers by Photosensitized Pulsed Laser Deposition.

Abstract

To form thin films of organic functional polymers, we proposed a modified technique of pulsed laser deposition (PLD), photosensitized PLD. The feature of the technique is that ablation is brought about by excitation not of target materials themselves but of a small amount of photosensitizer doped in the polymer targets. Because of the efficient photosensitized thermal reaction, we can induce ablation at longer laser wavelength and lower fluence. Thus photochemical decomposition is avoided in the PLD process. By employing the technique, we succeeded in the deposition of thin films of various polymers. In this report, we focused our attention onto PTFE that has high potential of application in industrial electronics. Choosing graphite as a photosensitizer, we succeeded in the deposition of PTFE with a near-infrared (1064 nm) Nd3+: YAG laser of giant-pulse-type (80 μs), which is a versatile, economical, and widely spread light source in industry.