Pulsed laser deposition method (PLD) is known to have high deposition rate per pulse which gives high cooling rate during film formation. PLD is therefore suitable for forming amorphous alloy films. In this research we examined the formation of Ta-Ni amorphous alloy films by PLD from Ta-Ni sintered targets. Ta-Ni amorphous alloys have the extremely high corrosion-resistance in both acid and alkaline solution and promising characteristics as catalyst carrier.
Amorphous films in a wide composition range of Ta-40-80mass% Ni were obtained by PLD. At a laser energy density of 20J/cm2, Ni having a lower boiling point than Ta, was ablated preferentially. On the other hand, at the laser energy density of 28J/cm2, we got the films having the same composition as the targets. The grain size of the films was smaller than that of Ta-Ni amorphous flakes prepared by a splash-quenching method. It was suggested that PLD gave larger cooling rate than a splash-quenching method.