Time-of-flight mass spectrometric studies on laser ablation dynamics of graphite: correlation to diamondlike carbon film deposition

Abstract

Time-of-flight mass spectrometry has been used to probe neutral and positive ionic species produced by laser ablation of a graphite target at 266, 355, 532, and 1064 nm. The arrival time distributions of major carbon species (C3, C+, and C3+) at a deposition substrate, 45 mm from a target, were fitted with a thermal Maxwell-Boltzmann (MB) distribution or a shifted MB distribution with a narrower width. The characteristics of laser ablation with shorter-wavelength laser light are the formation of atomic carbon species with high kinetic energies and the promotion of their ionization. We discuss the generation process of C+ and the formation of a tetrahedral amorphous carbon film with a high fraction of sp3 bonded carbon atoms.© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.