Atomically Clean Surfaces by Pulsed Laser Bombardment

Abstract

It is shown that high power, Q-spoiled lasers offer an interesting method for obtaining clean surfaces in vacuum. However, complete removal of oxygen and sulfur contamination from nickel surfaces by laser bombardment at 100 MW/cm2 produced irreparable surface damage that is attributed to filamentizing of the laser beam and/or to nonuniform surface reflectivity. On the other hand, application of the technique at 30 MW/cm2 successfully removed the (7×7) satellite structure from (111) silicon surfaces without surface damage.