Structural and optical properties of YVO4 thin films

In this work, thin YVO4 films were deposited on amorphous SiO2 substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Ceramic targets of pure and doped (Er and Er, Yb) YVO4 were prepared and used for ablation. The influence of the substrate temperature and oxygen pressure applied during the depositions was investigated. Crystalline films were obtained at temperatures higher than 500 8C. The films with the best crystallinity were obtained at 5 Pa oxygen pressure and 700 8C substrate temperature. All the films are transparent in the visible and near infrared region of spectra. The crystalline samples show difference in the refractive indexes Dn (Dn = nTE nTM) for the TE and TM polarizations. It was evaluated to be about 0.08.