The effect of relative plasma plume delay on the properties of complex oxide films grown by multi-laser, multi-target combinatorial pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

We report the effects of relative time delay of plasma plumes on thin garnet crystal films fabricated by dual-beam, combinatorial pulsed laser deposition. Relative plume delay was found to affect both the lattice constant and elemental composition of mixed Gd 3 Ga 5 O 12 (GGG) and Gd 3 Sc 2 Ga 3 O 12 (GSGG) films. Further analysis of the plasmas was undertaken using a Langmuir probe, which revealed that for relative plume delays shorter than ~200 µs, the second plume travels through a partial vacuum created by the first plume, leading to higher energy ion bombardment of the growing film. The resulting in-plane stresses are consistent with the transition to a higher value of lattice constant normal to the film plane that was observed around this delay value. At delays shorter than ~10 µs, plume propagation was found to overlap, leading to scattering of lighter ions from the plume and a change in stoichiometry of the resultant films.

Deposition and composition-control of Mn-doped ZnO thin films by combinatorial pulsed laser deposition using two delayed plasma plumes

“…In this way, by monitoring the number of pulses, it is possible to produce novel multilayered and doped materials. 4 The first combinatorial method was proposed by Gaponov et al 5 in order to reduce the incorporation of micro-sized particulates on the films. Their idea was to overlap two plasma plumes originated from two separated targets in order to produce collisions between the species.…”

“…[12][13][14][15] There are only few reports in which the effects produced by this delay between laser pulses have been studied. 4 Nonetheless, there are several works in which the interaction between two plasmas is used to grow thin films, most of them are focused to analyze the film and do not study the involved physical processes during the expansion of plasmas. One technique that has resulted to be useful to analyze the interaction of two plasmas is the use of Langmuir probes, which it is possible to relate the characteristics of the plasmas with the properties of the produced thin films.…”

“…One technique that has resulted to be useful to analyze the interaction of two plasmas is the use of Langmuir probes, which it is possible to relate the characteristics of the plasmas with the properties of the produced thin films. 4,16 On the other hand, Mn-doped ZnO thin films have received great attention during the last decade since the theoretical prediction of Dietl et al 17 about this material can exhibit ferromagnetism (FM) at room-temperature (RT). There is a large number of possible applications for a material of this type, especially in spintronics (spin-based electronics).…”

Hybrid garnet crystal growth for thin-disc lasing applications by multi-beam pulsed laser deposition

“…Yb:GGG should prove a more useful cone growth material as, unlike Yb:YAG, GGG has been proven to ablate well under both excimer and Nd:YAG radiation [5,6]. Ambient pressure can be increased for GGG-only growth, which is expected to result in stoichiometry closer to that of bulk as well as the higher growth rates required for laser crystal growth.…”

“…Quick, simple growth of appropriate materials (such as mixed garnets) via Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) has been demonstrated on a number of occasions [5,6], making this method ideal for further investigation.…”