PLD 500 Pulsed Laser Deposition System

In Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) , a high energy pulsed laser beam is used to evaporate the material to be deposited. The laser beam is focused by a lens and hits a target of the desired material at ~45° angle. The incident laser beam creates a plume of the material, perpendicular to the target surface. A heated sample is placed in the plume path for thin film growth.

Pulsed laser deposition offers many advantages over other thin film deposition techniques. The technique normally produces a film with the same composition as the target. PLD can also be used to deposit almost any material. Typically PLD is used for the deposition of complex ceramic materials and especially high temperature superconductors.

The PLD 500 is an advanced pulsed laser deposition system for epitaxial oxide thin film growth. The sample heater and pumping system are designed for high oxygen partial pressure during deposition and post deposition annealing. A high pressure RHEED from Staib Instruments can be using for RHEED studies during the deposition. The PLD 500 system uses a computer controlled multi-target manipulator for target indexing, rotation and scanning.

Many features of the PLD system were developed in collaboration with the Department of Engineering Physics and Mathematics at the University of Helsinki.

The photo on the left shows our PLD system for Prof. Habermeier's group at the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, in Stuttgart, Germany.