Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) has become one of the most powerful methods to obtain a wide class of materials in the thin film form. The technique is based on the removal of material (ablation) from a target by means of a collimated beam of high energy laser (excimer, CO₂ or Nd:YAG lasers). The interaction of the laser beam with the target produces a highly oriented material stream, usually ejected normal to target surface that deposits onto appropriate substrates positioned in front of the target. Such a stream consists of neutral and ionized atomic or molecular highly energetic species present in the target. As a result both the process and the properties of the deposited films are strongly dependent on many parameters.

In this paper we report about the structural and electronic properties of SiC, a-SiC:H, a-Si:H and CN_x thin films deposited by PLD. The results confirm how PLD can be successfully employed in the preparation of the above compounds, in a wide range of stoichiometry, simply by varying in a controlled way few deposition parameters: (i) the laser fluence and wavelength; (ii) the structural and chemical composition of the target material; (iii) the buffer gas composition and pressure; (iv) the substrate temperature.