Solid Thin Film Growth by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a physical vapor deposition technique that has emerged in the last decade as a viable means of producing high quality thin films of a wide variety of materials, including insulators, semiconductors, high temperature superconductors, metals and metal oxides. In fact, almost any materials grown by other thin film techniques can be obtained using PLD, making it an extremely versatile technique. My researches in this area include studies of the physical mechanisms of thin film formation and growth various thin films by PLD.

• Conducted research on the mechanism of thin film deposition by pulsed laser ablation technique. The supersonic expansion type model was applied for the first time in the laser plume to describe atomic and ionic beams. The correlation between film quality and velocity distribution of atomic beams was discussed.
• Investigated the laser deposition technology to grow various aspects of thin films, including high quality YBa₂Cu₃O_7-xsupercoducting thin films, high optical quality CdS_xSe_1-xthin films, highly electrical conductive and optical transparent indium-tin-oxide thin films at low temperatures.
• Determine the time-dependent surface ordering of silicon atoms as a function during PLD by resolving surface reconstruction features in electron beam diffraction pattern by an ultrafast CCD camera. Through this study, a better understanding of the film formation process under extremely high flux condition will lead to a more general approach to PLD growth, so that provides a guidance in determining process parameters quickly and efficiently for new materials. This project is supporting by National Sciences Foundation.