Pulsed Ion-Beam Evaporation for Thin-Film Deposition

The process of pulsed ion-beam evaporation was studied by investigating its three important stages: target ablation, plasma expansion, and thin-film deposition. The diagnostic results have shown that the target mass loss caused by ion-beam ablation mainly depends on the melting and boiling temperatures of the target materials. In addition, high-speed photographs have shown that the expansion of the ablation plasma is highly directional. The result of thin-film composition analysis has indicated that the ablation plasma moved along the substrate surface during thin-film deposition.