Morphological and structural characterization of SiC based composite nanostructures

This paper reports on producing SiC based nanostructures (SiC, W-SiC, CNS-SiC) by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and radio-frequency plasma assisted PLD. Simple and composite targets (SiC, 3/4 SiC + 1/4 tungsten and 3/4 SiC + 1/4 graphite) were irradiated by a 266 nm pulsed laser beam having a pulse duration of 7 ns. The silicon substrates were kept either at room temperature or heated up to 600 °C. The depositions were performed in argon at various pressures, ranging from 0.05 mbar up to 2 mbar. The influence of deposition parameters on the structure, surface morphology and composition of different SiC based structures was studied by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction. Fibers, tubes, nanoparticles and rolled sheets structures were obtained by varying laser fluence, substrate temperature, gas pressure and radio-frequency power.