Tracing the plasma interactions for pulsed reactive crossed-beam laser ablation

Pulsed reactive crossed-beam laser ablation is an effective technique to govern the chemical activity of plasma species and background molecules during pulsed laser deposition. Instead of using a constant background pressure, a gas pulse with a reactive gas, synchronized with the laser beam, is injected into vacuum or a low background pressure near the ablated area of the target. It intercepts the initially generated plasma plume, thereby enhancing the physicochemical interactions between the gaseous environment and the plasma species. For this study, kinetic energy resolved mass-spectrometry and time-resolved plasma imaging were used to study the physicochemical processes occurring during the reactive crossed beam laser ablation of a partially ¹⁸O substituted La_0.6Sr_0.4MnO₃ target using oxygen as gas pulse. The characteristics of the ablated plasma are compared with those observed during pulsed laser deposition in different oxygen background pressures