The Influence of the Number of Laser Pulses on the Thickness and Roughness of TiO2 Thin Films Fabricated Using Pulsed Laser Deposition

In this work Titanium Dioxide thin films were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) using a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser. Titanium dioxide powder, in the Anatase form, was compressed to form solid disks. Each of these disks was irradiated with different number of laser pulses (5, 10 and 15 pulses) with the same pulse energy (150 mJ) and same Repetition rate (10 Hz). The thickness and topography of each deposited thin films were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results showed that the thickness of the film increase exponentially when the number of laser pulses increased. The results showed also that the average roughness (Ra) of the films and the root means square roughness (RMS) increased with increasing the number of pulses exponentially to specific value and then decreased exponentially in a behavior like the Gaussian shape