Laser-induced evaporation, reactivity and deposition of ZrO2, CeO2, V2O5 and mixed Ce-V oxides

It has been found that pulsed laser ablation has good potentiality for the deposition of ZrO2, CeO2, V2O5 and mixed Ce-V oxides which are very important materials for their application in optics and electrochromic devices. Laser induced compositional changes of thin films in the ablation and deposition processes of these materials have been explored, The effect of the oxygen gas pressure on the thin film composition has been examined. The congruency of the process has been treated on the basis of a thermal mechanism of evaporation-decomposition of the compounds. An attempt to model the processes by means of a thermodynamic approach is reported (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.