Nanostructured thin films β-Al-Mg obtained using PLD technique

Abstract

In this work, the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique was used to grow AlMg thin films from a β-Mg2Al3 target with nominal composition: 39.09 at.% Mg and 60.91 at.% Al. The paper presents the study of β-Mg2Al3 thin films deposited using the pulsed laser deposition technique. AlMg thin films were prepared on Si (400) substrates and deposited by means of using a QS-Nd:YAG laser (λ = 266, 355 nm). Samples were prepared with laser fluence (1.1 J/cm2 and 1.6 J/cm2) and at two different substrate (Si) temperatures (25°C and 200°C). The target possessed columnar structure and changes in chemical composition took place as a result of the influence of the laser irradiation. Investigations focused on structure and chemical composition showed that the films generally had nanocrystalline structure and that the quantity of Al and Mg varied in the films.