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Ablation of a silicone oil, Dow Corning's DC-705 with laser pulses of sub-ps duration in high vacuum is a novel approach to fabrication of Si-doped carbon nanocomposite films. Gently focused, temporally clean 700 fs pulses @ 248 nm of a hybrid dye/excimer laser system produce power densities of the order of 10 11 –10 12 W cm −2 on the target surface. The evolution of the chemical structure of film material is followed by comparing Fourier Transformed Infrared and X-ray Photoelectron spectra of films deposited at temperatures between room temperature and 250 °C. Despite the low thermal budget technique, in the spectrum of films deposited at room temperature the fingerprint of the silicone oil can clearly be identified. With increasing substrate temperature the contribution of the features characteristic of the oil gradually diminishes, but does not completely disappear even at 250 °C. This result is intriguing since the chance of oil droplets to survive in their original liquid form on the hot surface should be minimal. The results of the X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy suggest that the chemical structure of the film material resembles that of the oil. Both reflection mode optical microscopy and low magnification Scanning Electron Microscopy reveal that the films are inhomogeneous: areas of lateral dimensions ranging from a few to tens of micrometers, characterized by different contrasts can be identified. On the other hand, surface mapping by Scanning Electron and Atomic Force Microscopy unambiguously proves that all films possess a solid surface consisting of nanoparticles of less than 100 nm dimension, without the presence of any drop of oil. Possible explanations of the puzzling results can be that the films are polymers consisting mainly of the molecules of the target material, or composites of solid C:Si nanoparticles and oil residues.

Laser-induced backside dry etching (LIBDE) is a promising technique for micro- and nanomachining of transparent materials. Although several experiments have already proved the suitability and effectiveness of the technique, there are several open questions concerning the etching mechanism and the concomitant processes. In this paper time-resolved light transmission investigations of etching process of fused silica are presented. 125 nm thick silver coating was irradiated through the carrying 1 mm thick fused silica plate by single pulses of a nanosecond KrF excimer laser. The applied fluences were 0.38, 0.71 and 1 J/cm 2 . During the etching process the irradiated spots were illuminated by an electronically delayed nitrogen laser pumped dye laser. The delay between the pump and probe pulses was varied in the range of 0 ns and 20 μs. It was found that the transmitted probe beam intensity strongly depends on the applied delays and fluences. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry of the etched surface showed the existence of silver droplets and fragments on the illuminated surfaces and silver atoms built into the treated surface layer influencing the transmission behavior of the studied samples.

Two-dimensional gratings are generated on poly-carbonate films spin-coated onto thin gold–silver bimetallic layers by two-beam interference method. Sub-micrometer periodic polymer dots and stripes are produced illuminating the poly-carbonate surface by p- and s-polarized beams of a frequency quadrupled Nd:YAG laser, and crossed gratings are generated by rotating the substrates between two sequential treatments. It is shown by pulsed force mode atomic force microscopy that the mean value of the adhesion is enhanced on the dot-arrays and on the crossed gratings. The grating-coupling on the two-dimensional structures results in double peaks on the angle dependent resonance curves of the surface plasmons excited by frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser. The comparison of the resonance curves proves that a surface profile ensuring minimal undirected scattering is required to optimize the grating-coupling, in addition to the minimal modulation amplitude, and to the optimal azimuthal orientation. The secondary minima are the narrowest in presence of linear gratings on multi-layers having optimized composition, and on crossed structures consisting of appropriately oriented polymer stripes. The large coupling efficiency and adhesion result in high detection sensitivity on the crossed gratings. Bio-sensing is realized by monitoring the rotated-crossed grating-coupled surface plasmon resonance curves, and detecting the chemical heterogeneity by tapping-mode atomic force microscopy. The interaction of Amyloid-β peptide, a pathogenetic factor in Alzheimer disease, with therapeutical molecules is demonstrated.

An inherent property of the ultrashort pulse lasers used presently for materials processing is that the main pulse is accompanied by an amplified spontaneous emission background. The temporal quality of the pulses is characterized by the temporal contrast. Due to the 5–6 orders of magnitude difference in the duration of the main pulse and the pedestal, high intensity contrast does not mean necessarily high enough difference in the respective energies. In materials processing applications consideration of the energy contrast is advisable. The importance of the contrast in determining the ablation process is exemplified by the dependence of the ablation rate of boron carbide on the cleanness of the pulses of a high brightness hybrid dye/excimer laser system. It is shown that serious consideration of the effects of the nanosecond background is mandatory when evaluating the results.

Boron carbide films with a thickness of up to 550 nm and deposit size of 40 mm × 30 mm were prepared by ablating a B4C target in high vacuum by pulses of 700 fs duration at 248 nm. Layer thickness and lateral distribution of the constituting elements along the symmetry axes of a deposit were investigated with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) with a focussed 2.5 MeV He+ ion beam. RBS spectra were fitted with the DataFurnace computer code. The results of 2D mapping proved that both the elemental composition and the film thickness of the deposit were non-uniform. The B/C ∼ 1 ratio measured at the edge of the deposit increased up to about three toward the centre, with both the B content and the B/C ratio varying linearly with the film thickness.

Carbon nitride films have been deposited by KrF excimer laser ablation of a rotating graphite target in 5 Pa nitrogen ambient in an inverse pulsed laser deposition configuration, where the backward motion of the ablated species is utilised for film growth on substrates lying in the target plane. Topometric AFM scans of the films, exhibiting elliptical thickness distribution, have been recorded along the axes of symmetry of the deposition area. High resolution AFM scans revealed the existence of disk-like, or somewhat elongated rice-like features of 5–10 nm average thickness and ∼100 nm largest dimension, densely packed over the whole, approximately 14 × 10 cm 2 deposition area. The RMS roughness of the film decreased from 9 nm near to the laser spot down to 2 nm in the outer regions. Even the highest RMS value obtained for IPLD films was less than half of the typical, 25 nm roughness measured on simultaneously deposited PLD films.

Growth characteristics and surface morphology of boron carbide films fabricated by ablating a B 4 C target in high vacuum with a traditional KrF excimer laser and a high brightness hybrid dye/excimer laser system emitting at the same wavelength while delivering 700 fs pulses are compared. The ultrashort pulse processing is highly effective. Energy densities between 0.25 and 2 J cm −2 result in apparent growth rates ranging from 0.017 to 0.085 nm/pulse. Ablation with nanosecond pulses of one order of magnitude higher energy densities yields smaller growth rates, the figures increase from 0.002 to 0.016 nm/pulse within the 2–14.3 J cm −2 fluence window. 2D thickness maps derived from variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry reveal that, when ablating with sub-ps pulses, the spot size rather than the energy density determines both the deposition rate and the angular distribution of film material. Pulse shortening leads to significant improvement in surface morphology, as well. While droplets with number densities ranging from 1 × 10 4 to 7 × 10 4 mm −2 deteriorate the surface of the films deposited by the KrF excimer laser, sub-ps pulses produce practically droplet-free films. The absence of droplets has also a beneficial effect on the stoichiometry and homogeneity of the films fabricated by ultrashort pulses.

Lateral distribution of the 10B isotope within a boron carbide film of 550 nm maximum thickness deposited on silicon wafer using pulsed laser deposition technique has been determined taking advantage of the high cross section for (n,α) reaction and nuclear tracks detectors (NTD – LR-115 Kodak Pathe). A radioisotope neutron source (252Cf, 20 μg) and a 60 × 60 × 80 cm3 graphite cube as moderator produce a relatively uniform thermal neutron field. Details of the passive detector etching process and data processing are included. The track density reveals the boron density spatial distribution. A 3D picture is produced to visualize the boron-10 spatial distribution. The result suggests that a gradient in the boron distribution exists to almost a factor of three. The advantages of the technique are discussed.