Development of a low cost pulsed laser deposition system for thin films growth

Abstract

Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) is a powerful technique to grow thin films. Oxides, Magnetics and superconducting materials have been obtained by PLD and theirs properties are strongly dependent of deposition parameters. The construction of a simple and cheap PLD system that is suitable for growing various thin films, including magnetic materials, controlling some deposition parameters is presented. The design characteristics and construction are presented for each one of the devices that compose this PLD system. The equipment has the possibility of carrying out films deposition using up to five targets under controlled atmosphere and substrate temperature. The system also allows controlling the cool off sample time after growing up films at high temperatures. A wide range of relative speeds between target and substrate axial rotation can be externally controlled. With the configuration and the dimensions adopted in their con- struction, a PLD system of great experimental flexibility is achieved, at a very low cost regarding the commercial sys- tems. To evaluate their performance and effectiveness, the deposition characteristics of a BaFe12O19 film on (0001) sapphire substrate is presented