Nature of the pulsed laser process for the deposition of high T c superconducting thin films

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Abstract
The pulsed laser thin‐film deposition process can enable preparation of thin films of complex composition with good control over the film stoichiometry. The film compositions are similar to that of the target pellet and as a consequence this technique appears to be an ideal method for preparing high Tc thin films on a variety of substrates.The factors which contribute to this beneficial phenomenon have been explored by a laser ionization mass spectrometry (LIMS) and a post ablation ionization (PAI) neutral velocity analysis technique in order to determine the mass and velocities of the laser ejected material. In addition, x‐ray absorption measurements on films deposited onto substrates at room temperature were performed in order to identify the presence of short‐range crystalline order in the films. Both of these studies rule out the ejection of stoichiometric clusters of material from the pellet during the laser ablation/deposition process. Instead, binary and ternary suboxides are emitted from the target pellet. These suboxides most likely have unit sticking coefficient to the substrate which could contribute to the preservation of the film stoichiometry. The velocity distribution of several neutral species (e.g., BaO) indicates that particles have energies of several eV. Thus the effective temperatures of the emitted species are ∼15×103 K, and these energetic particles may facilitate growth of the crystalline films at low substrate temperatures.