A comprehensive tutorial on the pulsed laser deposition technique and developments in the fabrication of low dimensional systems and nanostructures

Pulsed Laser Deposition of Transparent Conductive Oxides on UV-NIL Patterned Substrates for Optoelectronic Applications

“…PLD is a physical vapor deposition technique where an external high-power laser (typically an UV laser source) ablates a target based on a single or a combination of compounds depending on the desired composition of the film [43]. In comparison with other deposition methods such as sputtering, molecular beam epitaxy, chemical vapor deposition, or thermal evaporation, PLD has the following advantages: (i) any type of substrate can be used for depositing thin films; (ii) by using UV laser sources, a wide range of materials can be ablated; (iii) the pressure during the deposition process can be choose from 10 −7 mbar up to 1 mbar; (iv) due to progressive growth with each laser pulse, a rigorous control of the thickness is possible; (v) the stoichiometry can be preserved or changed in a controlled manner during the deposition; (vi) the kinetic energy of the evaporated species can be moderated in order to control the film growth properties; (vii) a background gas can be used in order to obtain the adequate reactive atmosphere; (viii) multilayered thin films can be obtained by switching different target materials in the deposition cycle; and (ix) assure the purity of the initial composition because the ablation source is the light [42][43][44][45]. As any deposition technique, the PLD process has also some drawbacks: (i) limited deposition area for standard setups; (ii) the uniformity of the deposition is influenced by energy profile and inhomogeneity of the laser pulse; (iii) macroscopic and microscopic droplets are sometimes ejected from the target [45,46].…”

“…Thus, metal films, semiconductor films, superconductors, ceramic layers, oxides, insulators can be easily obtained by this laser technique [54,55]. Moreover, nanostructures with different morphologies such as nanowires, nanoflowers, nanorods, nanotubes, and even quantum dots based on ZnO, ITO, graphene, molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ), cadmium selenide (CdSe) can be deposited by PLD [45,47,[56][57][58]. The thin films or nanostructures fabricated by PLD were integrated in various devices: photovoltaics, environmental sensors, actuators, light emitters, ferroelectrics, photocatalysis, biomaterials, medical implants, etc.…”

“…The thin films or nanostructures fabricated by PLD were integrated in various devices: photovoltaics, environmental sensors, actuators, light emitters, ferroelectrics, photocatalysis, biomaterials, medical implants, etc. [45,47,59].…”

Kaolinite Thin Films Grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition and Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation

“…Based on the vast applications (i.e., biotechnology, microelectronics, optoelectronics) that are relying on these oxides and hydroxides, an increasing research interest was observed regarding PLD technique in the processing of these materials. This laser-based method has many advantages, for example low processing duration for thin films of hundreds of nanometers and it is a non-polluting method, the laser being the energy source [ 16 ]. Moreover, PLD can produce films with excellent adhesion, due to the high energy of the species reaching the substrate [ 17 , 18 ].…”

Sub-picosecond 1030 nm laser-induced damage threshold evaluation of pulsed-laser deposited sesquioxide thin films

“…13,14 PLD also provides the ability to deposit several multicomponent materials in situ with preserved stoichiometry. 15 Since the pioneering PLD work from Smith and Turner in 1965, 16 the technique has been used for deposition of a wide range of materials 17 and recently proved to be a reliable method for optical-coating fabrication. [18][19][20][21][22] In the past decade, mirrors based on the combination of HfO 2 , a high-refractive-index material, and SiO 2 , a low-refractive-index material, received considerable attention.…”