Microstructure and roughness improvement of polycrystalline Bi thin films upon pulsed-laser melting

Bismuth films with different thicknesses have been grown by do sputtering on substrates held at room temperature. The films are always formed by columnar crystals with a grain size comparable to the film thickness which lead to surface roughness. It increases with the thickness of the films and has a strong influence on the film optical properties. The films have been irradiated with nanosecond laser pulses, and real-time reflectivity measurements during the irradiation were used to follow the changes in the film optical properties. It will be shown that pulsed-laser irradiation of films thinner than 100 nm improves substantially their surface roughness and their crystalline quality by increasing the grain size at least one order of magnitude.