Pulsed laser vaporization and deposition

Photons have many advantages for vaporizing condensed systems, and laser va porization sources have a flexibility not available with other methods. The se sources are applied to making thin films in the well-known technique of pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The vaporized material may be further proces sed through a pulsed secondary gas, lending the source additional degrees, of freedom. Such pulsed-gas sources have long been exploited for fundamenta l studies, and they are very promising for him deposition, as an alternativ e to chemical vapor deposition or molecular beam epitaxy. The authors outli ne the fundamental physics involved and go on to discuss recent experimenta l findings.