Pulsed laser deposition of metal and metal multilayer films

Pulsed laser deposition is a highly flexible technique for the fabrication of thin films, and can in principle be applied to all solid materials including metals, refractory metals and rare earths. Near the ablation threshold the removal of material can be understood in terms of evaporation from the laser heated surface; however as the laser intensity is increased the ablation is via a laser produced plasma. In this plasma regime the ion energies range up to several hundred eV, and cause a significant level of self-sputtering. The deposition rate is typically less than one monolayer per laser pulse, making the technique well suited to the preparation of thin film multilayers. The pulsed laser deposition of metal and metal multilayer films is described.