Short-pulse laser deposition of diamond-like carbon thin films

The high intensities present in and the non-thermal nature of ultrashort-pu lse laser ablation provide a nearly ideal source for thin-film deposition. The high kinetic energies and high ion content in the ablation plume sugges t that it would be useful for the creation of diamond thin films. We used a 120 fs, 3 W, 1 kHz laser to ablate a graphite target and characterized the resulting films. We were able to grow amorphous films of up to 18 mu m thi ck and free from graphite particulates with no annealing necessary and at r ates up to 25 mu m/hr. The films had 40%-50% sp(3) bonds as measured by usi ng EELS and had properties typical of PLD-generated diamond-like carbon fil ms.