Reducing the surface roughness beyond the pulsed-laser-deposition limit.
Here, we outline the theoretical fundamentals of a promising growth kinetics of films from the vapor phase, in which pulsed fluxes are combined with temperature transients to enable short-range surface relaxations (e.g., species rearrangements) and to inhibit long-range relaxations (atomic exchange between species). A group of physical techniques (fully pulsed thermal and/or laser depositions) based on this kinetics is developed that can be used to prepare films with roughnesses even lower than those obtained with pulsed-laser deposition, which is the physical vapor-phase deposition technique that has produced the flattest films reported so far.
Vasco
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E
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Polop
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C
Sacedón
J L
JL