The gaseous phase obtained by ablating a superconducting SmBa2Cu3O7-x target with a Nd:glass laser (lambda = 529 nm, tau = 250 fs) has been characterised by optical emission spectroscopy, quadrupole mass spectrometry and ICCD imaging, to analyse the plume composition, energy and morphology. The results obtained show that femtosecond ablation creates plumes with different shapes and velocities as compared to nanosecond ablation. The plume angular distribution has a high cosine exponent and the optical emission spectroscopy evidences a low ionisation degree, coupled with a high kinetic energy of the particles. Films have been deposited by the ablation process and analysed by the conventional techniques used for solid state characterisation. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.