Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) is a unique and easy technique for producing thin films of materials specifically Oxides. In the PLD technique a very short and high energy laser pulse is focused on a target material located in an ultra high vacuum chamber. The focused laser beam is intense enough to produce a plume of vaporized material. In order to grow an epitaxial film a substrate located on a heater at a short distance away from the target allowing the vaporized material to recombine and form a layer of film on substrate. In PLD one needs to adjust few parameters in order to grow an epitaxial thin films of materials. With this technique one also can produce multi-layers film containing several materials. At Brock such a system is in operation since 1991. We have used a Lumonics excimer laser, 200 mJ of energy per pulse,that was built in 1983. This excimer laser is no longer safe to be used due to the leakage of halogen gas and the  broken front mirror (no longer available commercially).The PLD system has served the student at Brock well for entering into the Canadian job market in this advanced field of thin films of material research technology. Indeed since 1991, two visiting Professors, two post doctoral fellows, two PhD students (co-supervised), ten MSc students, and seven fourth year students (thesis projects) used the pulse laser deposition system for their projects. This training helped many of my students to find jobs in industries or to continue successfully their education in a PhD program. My present graduate and undergraduate students  need the PLD system not only for their thesis project but also helping them  to contribute to the future of Canadian work force in the electronic industries.