This paper documents the growth of single crystal Ti:sapphire thin fil
ms, typically 10 mu m thick, on undoped sapphire substrates using puls
ed laser deposition from a Ti:sapphire single crystal target with a do
ping level of 0.1 wt.% Ti2O3. These thin films are shown to have very
high crystal quality using ion beam channelling and X-ray diffraction
techniques. The degree of titanium incorporation into the films is inv
estigated using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and parti
cle induced X-ray emission. These techniques show that levels of up to
0.08 wt.% Ti2O3 are present in the deposited layers. (C) 1997 Elsevie
r Science S.A.