Characterization of PLD at 355nm for plasmonic metallic nitride films under noble gas atmosphere and substrate heating

Metallic nitrides are cutting-edge materials for nano plasmonics. The authors focused on a fabrication of subwavelength films with them by pulsed laser deposition at 355 nm. Fortunately an initial stage of the PLD process succeeded in depositing titanium nitride (TiN), aluminum nitride (AlN), silver (Ag), gold (Au), copper (Cu), and aluminum (Al) thin films on glass substrate. Basically the deposition rate depended on each material, laser energy (pulse fluence), and distance between the target and substrate, and the thickness of the PLDed films proportional to pulse number. But the deposition rate or angular distribution of the plume is poorly-reproducible. We have been exploring an improvement in the situation through rotation of target, expansion of the laser spot, and minor addition of argon with QCM deposition monitor.