Numerical study of the role of a background gas and system geometry in pulsed laser deposition

The transport of laser ablated particles through a Maxwell-distributed ambient gas is simulated by Monte Carlo method. Three system geometry configurations frequently appearing in laser ablation experiments are considered: plume tilting, use of an interacting gas jet, and deposition on a substrate placed perpendicular to the laser-irradiated surface. The influence of the ambient gas on the formation of film thickness profiles and kinetic energy distributions of the deposited particles is studied. The thermalization of the laser plume and the backscattering of the ablated particles due to collisions with the background gas are investigated from two-dimensional film thickness distributions. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(98)06311-7].