The presence of droplets in pulsed laser deposition of aluminum with capillary ablation targets

It is shown that in pulsed laser deposition PLD.reduction of unwanted droplets can be achieved by the ablation of a capillary at grazing incidence and putting the deposition substrate behind the capillary. Capillaries made of pure aluminum were used in the described experiments and the diameter of the capillary was set equal to the beam waist diameter of the focused laser beam. The deposition yield observed under these conditions on the rear substrate is about six times lower than the corresponding yield on the front substrate. Droplets are detected on both substrates, but on the rear substrate, droplets larger than about 10 mm are completely absent, and the abundance of smaller droplets is about two times less. q2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved