The characteristic behaviours of pulsed excimer laser deposition (at 2
48 nm) of metallic alloys and multilayers are: high deposition rates o
f up to 3 nm/s above an ablation threshold of about 5 J/cm(2), a nearl
y congruent transfer between target and film, droplets on the film sur
face, and a strong thickness dependence of the obtained films. Compare
d to sputtered or evaporated films the alloys obtained are characteriz
ed by similar structures in most cases, but often larger extensions of
single-phase regions and enlarged lattice parameters in the growth di
rection, while multilayers sometimes have different textures, often a
better alignment of the grains in the growth direction and in systems
with a negative heat of mixing sometimes a different critical bilayer
thickness for the formation of fully amorphous films. Therefore, the p
ulsed laser deposition is an attractive alternative thin-film techniqu
e for the deposition of metallic alloys and multilayers.