A shadowed off-axis production of Ge nanoparticles in Ar gas atmosphere by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

In this work, we report on the production of Ge nanoparticles (NPs) in an inert Ar gas atmo- sphere by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at room tem- perature (RT). The direct deposition of energetic par- ticles / droplets resulting from the ablation process of the target material has been avoided by using an origi- nal and customized o -axis shadow mask (shadowed o - axis) deposition set-up where the NPs deposition on the substrate takes place by means of scattering between the NPs formed in the vapour phase and the background Ar atoms. It is found that the Ar gas pressure parameter has a relevant role on the crystallization process, with better crystallinity obtained as the background Ar pressure is raised for the given experimental conditions.