An overview on nitride films deposited by reactive pulsed laser ablation

Summary form only given. Pulsed laser ablation and reactive pulsed laser ablation are the most suitable and efficient techniques, among various thin film deposition techniques known nowadays, for the formation of high quality ceramic films. The main parameters determining the composition, the structure and the morphology of the deposited films are the pulse duration and the laser power density, the pressure and the type of reactive gas, the substrate temperature, the deposition geometry and the target-substrate distance. With the same parameters, deposition rate and film thickness can be also controlled. These universal techniques have been extensively and successfully employed for the growth of nitrides such as CN, TiN, BN, AlN, SiN, GaN, etc. Nitrides are considered to be futuristic materials for wear resistant coatings because of their tribological properties, and for high temperature and high power optoelectronic devices due to their desired optoelectronic thermal properties. The results obtained for each nitride prepared by PLA and RPLA are described, and also briefly presented and discussed are the nitridation processes. Particular attention is paid to the spectroscopic studies during the reactive laser ablation and to the strong contradictions reported in the literature on the deposition processes of the nitride films. Finally, the problems associated with the characterisation methods that have been used in the analysis of the deposited films are discussed.