MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION OF PULSED-LASER ABLATION FROM 2-COMPONENT TARGET INTO DILUTED AMBIENT GAS

Laser ablation from a binary target into a diluted gas background is s tudied by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. The influence of the ambi ent gas on the spatial and mean energy distribution of particles depos ited at the distant detector is considered. Thermalization of the part icles, the random scattering effect and the backscattering of particle s were observed, Considerable modification of the deposited film thick ness profiles due to collisions of the ablated particles with the ambi ent gas is shown, The increase of the ambient gas pressure was found t o affect the stoichiometry distribution of deposited and backscattered particles, The study is of a particular interest for the development of the thin film growing technique known as pulsed laser deposition. ( C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.