Structural and morphological characterization of Nd:YAG on Silicon (100) grown by femtosecond pulsed laser deposition with nitrogen and oxygen background gases
Abstract
Nd:YAG was grown on silicon (100) by femtosecond pulsed laser deposition with nitrogen and with oxygen background gas. The base pressure was 4x10-5 mbar with gas pressures varied at 4, 6 and 8x10-2 mbar. XRD spectra showed that the crystalline property of the deposited samples highly depends on background pressure. As the gas pressure increases, the XRD FWHM decreases, indicating an improved crystallinity. It was also shown that the deposition technique was capable of growing nanocrystalline particles in the YAG (632) plane. The crystallite size was shown to increase with gas pressure. SEM images revealed that Nd:YAG rod structures were grown in nitrogen background gas while coalescence of particles was observed for the samples deposited in oxygen background gas. Lastly, it was shown that as the gas pressure increases, average particle size increases.