IMPROVED UNIFORMITY OF MULTIELEMENT THIN-FILMS PREPARED BY OFF-AXIS PULSED-LASER DEPOSITION USING A NEW HEATER DESIGN

A new compact substrate heater for the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) t echnique has been developed. The heater is built up of a radiation par t, consisting of two quartz halogen lamps, and a rotating absorber, ma de of a SiC disk, to which the substrate is attached. The advantage of this system in comparison to conventional heaters is its suitability for substrate temperatures up to 800 degrees C in any ambient (vacuum as well as corrosive gases). The heater is applied for the deposition of thin, multielement films with improved thickness uniformity using o ff-axis PLD. This technique makes use of a rotating substrate which is off-centered from the depositing plasma plume. The thickness profile is modeled using predetermined stationary thickness distributions. For a variety of multielement materials good experimental uniformities in terms of thickness (in close agreement with the calculations) and of chemical composition are obtained. A relation is found between the val ue of experimental parameters and the achievable uniformity area withi n a large pressure range. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.