Droplet-free thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition using a vane velocity filter

Pulsed laser deposition is an effective method of fabricating a large variety of thin films. However, it has a serious disadvantage in that many droplets with diameters of 1-10/μm are deposited together with the ablation species. In order to eliminate droplets, a velocity filter containing many vanes was adopted, by means of which the number of droplets decreased markedly. The velocity distribution of the droplets was obtained for various droplet sizes. The maximum velocity Of the droplets is 65 m/s. This shows that it is possible to eliminate the droplets completely at a suitable cutoff velocity of the filter.