In situ diagnostics of pulsed laser ablation through atomic oxygen absorption spectroscopy

We present an in situ diagnostics for time-and space-resolved analysis of atomic oxygen during pulsed laser ablation in the presence of a molecular oxygen environment. Our diagnostics are based on transient atomic absorption spectroscopy and exploits diode laser as the probe source. The results, acquired during ablation of YBCO and NiTi targets, demonstrate the sensitivity of the technique in detecting the atomic oxygen produced through dissociation of O(2) environment gas, and show the formation of a relatively large density of atomic oxygen close to the plume range in the experimental conditions typical for deposition of superconductive thin films. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.