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Femtosecond laser assisted crystallization of gold thin films.

Sharif, Ayesha orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-5604-1475, Farid, Nazar orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-0556-6794, Vijayaraghavan, Rajani K. orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-1096-448X, McNally, Patrick J. orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-2798-5121 and O'Connor, Gerard M. orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4577-1023 (2021) Femtosecond laser assisted crystallization of gold thin films. Journal of Nanomaterials, 11 (5). ISSN 2079-4991

Abstract
We propose a novel low temperature annealing method for selective crystallization of gold thin films. Our method is based on a non-melt process using highly overlapped ultrashort laser pulses at a fluence below the damage threshold. Three different wavelengths of a femtosecond laser with the fundamental (1030 nm), second (515 nm) and third (343 nm) harmonic are used to crystallize 18-nm and 39-nm thick room temperature deposited gold thin films on a quartz substrate. Comparison of laser wavelengths confirms that improvements in electrical conductivity up to 40% are achievable for 18-nm gold film when treated with the 515-nm laser, and the 343-nm laser was found to be more effective in crystallizing 39-nm gold films with 29% improvement in the crystallinity. A two-temperature model provides an insight into ultrashort laser interactions with gold thin films and predicts that applied fluence was insufficient to cause melting of gold films. The simulation results suggest that non-equilibrium energy transfer between electrons and lattice leads to a solid-state and melt-free crystallization process. The proposed low fluence femtosecond laser processing method offers a possible solution for a melt-free thin film crystallization for wide industrial applications.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:femtosecond laser; laser wavelength; crystallinity; laser fluence; gold thin films; damage threshold; sheet resistance; two temperature model
Subjects:Engineering > Electronic engineering
Physical Sciences > Lasers
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing > School of Electronic Engineering
Research Institutes and Centres > I-Form
Official URL:https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11051186
Copyright Information:© 2021 The Authors. Open Access (CC-BY-4.0)
Funders:Science Foundation Ireland Grant number 16/RC/3872
ID Code:26046
Deposited On:01 Jul 2021 12:54 by Vidatum Academic . Last Modified 27 Jul 2022 16:20
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