Dynamics of pulsed laser ablation of gold in vacuum in the regime of nanostructured film synthesis

The dynamics of heating and vaporization of gold in vacuum under the action of laser pulses of low intensity, when the main ablation products are neutral particles, is investigated by mass spectrometry and numerical modeling. The laser-ablation plume is found to consist of gold atoms and dimers with kinetic energies considerably higher than their thermal energy upon evaporation. Nanostructured gold films are synthesized by depositing the ablation products onto a substrate. Formation mechanisms of the gold nanostructures and possibilities of controlling their sizes are discussed.