Investigation of the Dependence of Thickness and Roughness of TiO2 Thin Films Fabricated Using Pulsed Laser Deposition on the Laser Energy

In this work Titanium Dioxide thin films were successfully deposited on glass substrates at room temperature by pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) using a Q-switch Nd: YAG laser to fabricate thin films. The target was an Anatase TiO2 powder that converted to solid disks by compressing it. The disks were irradiated with different laser pulse energies (100, 150 and 200 mJ) with the same number of laser pulses (10 pulses) and the same laser repetition rate to fabricate three groups of thin film (I, II and III). An atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used for the characterization of the thickness and topography of these thin films. The results showed that the thickness of the films was in the range of hundreds nanometers and it is increased exponentially with the laser energy. The dependence of the root means squire roughness (RMS) on laser pulse energy also was investigated and the results showed that the (RMS) increase exponentially as laser pulse energy to specific value, and then decrease exponentially that the whole curve looks like Gaussian shape