Abstract

We discuss and demonstrate a novel technique for the deposition of high quality thin films via pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using high repetition rate (up to several tens of MHz) picosecond or nanosecond laser pulses. Differences between this method and conventional PLD arise because the pulse energy is markedly reduced compared with the conventional high-energy low repetition rate lasers used for PLD and this significantly improves the quality of the films due to the large decrease (up to nine orders of magnitude) in the number of particles evaporated during a single laser pulse. This effectively eliminates the major disadvantage of PLD which is the formation of particulates in the film.

© 1998 IEEE