Layer-by-layer modification of thin-film metal-semiconductor multilayers with ultrashort laser pulses

摘要

The surface modifications in a multilayer thin-film structure (50-nm alternating layers of Si and Al) induced by a single Gaussian-shaped femtosecond laser pulse (350 fs, 1028 nm) in the air are investigated by means of atomic-force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and optical microscopy (OM). Depending on the laser fluence, various modifications of nanometer-scale metal and semiconductor layers, including localized formation of silicon/aluminum nanofoams and layer-by-layer removal, are found. While the nanofoams with cell sizes in the range of tens to hundreds of nanometers are produced only in the two top layers, layer-by-layer removal is observed for the four top layers under single pulse irradiation. The 50-nm films of the multilayer structure are found to be separated at their interfaces, resulting in a selective removal of several top layers (up to 4) in the form of step-like (concentric) craters. The observed phenomenon is associated with a thermo-mechanical ablation mechanism that results in splitting off at film-film interface, where the adhesion force is less than the bulk strength of the used materials, revealing linear dependence of threshold fluences on the film thickness.