Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) - a Versatile Thin Film Technique Hans-Ulrich Krebs 1 , Martin Weisheit 1 , J¨ org Faupel 1 , Erik S¨ uske 1 , Thorsten Scharf 1 , Christian Fuhse 1 , Michael St¨ ormer 1,2 , Kai Sturm 1,3 , Michael Seibt 4 , Harald Kijewski 5 , Dorit Nelke 6 , Elena Panchenko 6 , and Michael Buback 6 1 Institut f¨ ur Materialphysik, Universit¨ at G¨ ottingen, Hospitalstraße 3-7, 37073 G¨ ottingen, Germany 2 GKSS-Forschungszentrum Geesthacht, Abt. WTB, Max-Planck-Straße 1, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany 3 Nanofilm Technologie GmbH, Anna-Vanderhoeck-Ring 5, 37081 G¨ ottingen 4 IV. Physikalisches Institut, Universit¨ at G¨ ottingen, Bunsenstraße 13, 37073 G¨ ottingen, Germany, 5 Institut f¨ ur Rechtsmedizin, Universit¨ at G¨ ottingen, Windausweg 2, 37073 G¨ ottingen, Germany 6 Institut f¨ ur Physikalische Chemie, Universit¨ at G¨ ottingen, Tammannstraße 6, 37077 G¨ ottingen, Germany E-Mail: krebs@ump.gwdg.de; http://www.gwdg.de/∼upmp Summary. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is for many reasons a versatile technique. Since with this method the energy source is located outside the chamber, the use of ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) as well as ambient gas is possible. Combined with a stoichiometry transfer between target and substrate this allows depositing all kinds of different materials, e.g., high-temperature superconductors, oxides, nitrides, car- bides, semiconductors, metals and even polymers or fullerenes can be grown with high deposition rates. The pulsed nature of the PLD process even allows prepar- ing complex polymer-metal compounds and multilayers. In UHV, implantation and intermixing effects originating in the deposition of energetic particles lead to the for- mation of metastable phases, for instance nanocrystalline highly supersaturated solid solutions and amorphous alloys. The preparation in inert gas atmosphere makes it even possible to tune the film properties (stress, texture, reflectivity, magnetic prop- erties...) by varying the kinetic energy of the deposited particles. All this makes PLD an alternative deposition technique for the growth of high-quality thin films. 1 Introduction With the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method, thin films are prepared by the ablation of one or more targets illuminated by a focused pulsed-laser beam.