Synthesis and properties of silicon dioxide films prepared by pulsed laser deposition using ceramic SiO2 target

Silicon dioxide (SiO2) thin films were deposited on BK7 substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method using ceramic SiO2 targets (C-SiO2-Ts), which was sintered by solid state sintering. The reason for using C-SiO2-T instead of the silicon target is to reduce the oxygen-deficiency phenomenon in deposited SiO2 thin films. The influence of substrate-temperatures, oxygen-pressures and oxygen-plasma-assistance on the properties of synthesized films was studied. X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, ultraviolet–visible–near-infrared scanning spectrophotometry were used to characterize the crystallinity, morphology and optical properties of deposited films. Results show that the root-mean-square roughness of films increased with the increase of oxygen-pressure, substrate-temperature and with the employment of oxygen-plasma. The transmittance of films increased with the increase of oxygen-pressure and decreased with the increase of substrate-temperature and with the employment of oxygen-plasma. Stoichiometric SiO2 thin film with high optical quality was synthesized at room-temperature and 20 Pa oxygen-pressure using C-SiO2-T.