Thin Film Growth using Ablation of Ceramics with a Lina-Spark™ Atomizer

Abstract

AbstractA laser spark atomizer (LINA-SPARK™), LSA, has been used for preparing powder particles from SnO2, Al2O3 and ZrO2 ceramic specimen. It is shown that this technique can be used for preparing thin films by direct deposition on a substrate. The as-prepared powder can also be redispersed and deposited using ultrasonic nebulization (Pyrosol) deposition. The latter approach is especially suited for deposition of controlled-size and multicomponent thin films.The coupling of the LSA to an induced coupled plasma (ICP) emission spectrometer is also discussed and compared with laser ablation. Generally powder particles produced from LSA present a narrower size distribution as powders prepared by laser ablation. As a result, the quantitative elemental analysis of solids are improved with full benefit of the sensitivity and detection limits of the ICP are lowered.