Physical characterization of pulsed laser deposition of diamond-like nanostructures

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films can be produced by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique in vacuum. Energetic laser pulses, with intensity of the order of 1010W/cm2, can be employed to generate hot carbon plasmas from glassy carbon ablation. Particles ejected from plasma can be deposited and/or ion implanted on different substrates. Energetic particles diffuse on the substrate surface and may generate nucleation and nanostructures. In the present work a Nd:Yag laser radiation, 532 nm wavelength, 9 ns pulse duration and 30 Hz repetition rate, was employed to grow thin DLC films on SiO2 substrates, placed at different distances and angles from the target. The PLD-generated plasma can be controlled "on line" by mass quadrupole spectrometry and time-of-flight techniques, in order to evaluate the atomic and molecular kinetic energy distributions. "Off line" investigations were performed on the deposited films by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), infrared-absorption spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy. Nanostructures with cubic shape and 300 nm average size growth on SiO2 surface are investigated and discussed. © Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic 2006.