Fundamentals of Chemical Vapor Deposition

Chemical vapor deposition is a synthesis process in which the chemical constituents react in the vapor phase near or on a heated substrate to form a solid deposit. The CVD technology combines several scientific and engineering disciplines including thermodynamics, plasma physics, kinetics, fluid dynamics, and of course chemistry. In this chapter, the fundamental aspects of these disciplines and their relationship will be examined as they relate to CVD. 

The number of chemical reactions used in CVD is considerable and include thermal decomposition (pyrolysis), reduction, hydrolysis, disproportionation, oxidation, carburization, and nitrida-tion. They can be used either singly or in combination (see Ch. 3 and 4). These reactions can be activated by several methods which are reviewed in Ch. 5. The most important are as follows  

Until recently, most CVD operations were relatively simple and could be readily optimized experimentally by changing the reach on chemistry, the activation method, or the deposition variables until a satisfactory deposit was achieved. It is still possible to do just that and in some cases it is the most efficient way to proceed. However, many of the CVD processes are becoming increasingly complicated with much more exacting requirements, which would make the empirical approach too cumbersome. 

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K.F. Jensen. Fundamentals of Chemical Vapor Deposition. In M.L. Hitchman and K.F. Jensen, editors, Chemical Vapor Deposition—Principles and Applications, pages 31-90. Academic Press, London, 1993. 

In this section, the fundamentals of chemical vapor deposition process (CVD) are briefly reviewed. For further details on this section, the reader is referred to excellent articles in literature. " Also the differences between polymer and other inorganic (for instance, metallic or ceramic materials) CVD processes are noted. 

In this paper, the fundamentals of chemical vapor deposition have been reviewed with emphasis on polymer thin films. CVD, being a vapor deposition technique offers several unique advantages over conventional thin film... 

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