Laser

Laser Ablation and Nanostructures

Pulsed laser ablation (PLA) and deposition (PLD) provide a means of growing thin coatings of a wide range of materials on an equally wide range of substrates. Despite its versatility and broad applicability, however, many details of the chemical physics underlying the ablation and deposition processes are still far from completely understood.  We explore the fundamental mechanisms of PLD of thin films by study of the properties of the ablation plumes using optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and characterize the resulting nanostructured thin films with electron microscopy.