Electronic coherence length following pulsed laser annealing of Cu(001).

High-energy pulsed lasers are currently finding novel applications in surface and near-surface materials processing. While the primary motivation for such studies is the fabrication of improved electronic devices, various investigations have demonstrated the utility of pulsed laser annealing in rapid surface cleaning as well as the production of original surface structures. Characterization of the electronic and geometric structures obtained is thus of fundamental and practical interest. The angle-resolved photoemission experiments reported here examine the quality of a pulsed laser annealed Cu (001) surface. A significant degradation of the electronic coherence length is observed for laser pulse energy densities above a certain threshold. This degradation is attributed to defect production. In addition, above threshold, the defect density and electron coherence length are found to be determined primarily by the integrated laser energy density.