Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition systems

At the end of last century, a near frictionless carbon (NFC) coating was reported, which is practically hydrogen contained DLC film grown on steel and sapphire substrates using a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system [50]. By using a ball on a disk tribo-meter, a super low friction coefficient of 0.001-0.003 between the films coated on both the ball and the disk was achieved [50]. A mechanistic model was proposed that carbon atoms on the surface are partially di-hydrogenated, resulting in the chemical inertness of the surface. Consequently, adhesive interaction becomes weak and super low friction is achieved [22],... 

The different PEC VD film/substrate systems are schematically presented in Figure 6a. The substrates correspond to 99.99% pure Al, mechanically polished with a 0.3 pm alumina powder, then finally electrolytically in a 70% methanol-30% nitric acid solution. When exposed to air, a native aluminum oxide of about 3 nm is produced. The substrates were coated with a dielectric film of a passivation material either SijN or Si02 4.5 wt.% P. These systems are, respectively, denoted as system A and system C. The SijN films were produced by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at a temperature of 360°C, while the SiO 4.5 wt.% P films were chemically vapor deposited at a temperature of 420°C. For both passivation materials, the thickness of the films was 0.8 pm. 

CVD is a well-understood thin film deposition method that uses chemical reactions of vapor-phase precursors. CVD processes have traditionally been initiated and controlled by heat as the source of energy. An elevated deposition temperature is normally required, which restricts the types of substrates that can be used and coating materials that can be deposited, especially thermally sensitive ones (Jones and Hitchman, 2009). However, thermal energy is not the only energy supplied to the system plasmas and photons are widely used in CVD processes. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), or plasma-assisted CVD, is a CVD technique in which plasma in lieu of thermal energy is used primarily to activate ions and radicals in the chemical reactions leading to layer formation on the substrate. One major advantage of PECVD over... 

Figure 3.4 A schematic diagram of a parallel plate design of a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system used to synthesize nanowires.

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) This system uses plasma for systems in which the thermal activation is insufficient for heterogeneous chemical reaction. Plasma activates the chemical reaction on the target surface using ionic bombardment. 

Deposition and Diffusion of Platinum Nanojjarticles in Porous Carbon Assisted by Plasma Sputtering. Surf. Coat. Technol., Vol. 200, p>p. 391-394 Caillard, A. Charles, C. Ramdutt, D. Boswell, R. Brault, P. (2009). Effect of Nafion and Platinum Content in a Catalyst Layer Processed in a Radio Frequency Helicon Plasma System. /. Phi/s. D Appl. Phys., Vol. 42, No. 045207 Cao, Y. Yang, W. Zhang, W. Liu, G. Yue, P. (2004). Improved Photocatalytic Activity of Sn4+ Dop>ed Ti02 Nanoparticulate Films Preprared by Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition. New. J. Chem., Vol. 28, pp. 218-222 Carlson, D.E. Wronski, C.R. (1976). Amorphous SiUcon Solar Cell. Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 28, pp. 671-673... 

Dielectric Deposition Systems. The most common techniques used for dielectric deposition include chemical vapor deposition (CVD), sputtering, and spin-on films. In a CVD system thermal or plasma energy is used to decompose source molecules on the semiconductor surface (189). In plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD), typical source gases include silane, SiH, and nitrous oxide, N2O, for deposition of siUcon nitride. The most common CVD films used are siUcon dioxide, siUcon nitride, and siUcon oxynitrides. 

A brief review of the literature concerning the several materials employed in the fabrication of both TIR and ARROW structures is given in Table 2. The processes employed are completely different, ranging from molecular beam epitaxy to several chemical vapor deposition (CVD) systems, such as low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) or plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD). As a rule, all suitable materials for ARROWS (and in general for IOCs) should have homogeneous refractive indexes, high mechanical and chemical stability, few... 

Chemical vapor deposition includes various systems, and they are low-pressure CVD (LPCVD), atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD), plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD), and others. Each type of CVD system has its own advantages and limitations. For instance, in LPCVD, the reactor is usually operated at 1 torr. Under this condition, the diffusivity of the gaseous species increases significantly compared to that under atmospheric pressure. Consequently, this increase in transport of the gaseous species to the reaction sites and the by-products from the reaction sites in LPCVD will not become the rate-limiting steps. This leads to the surface reaction step to be the rate limiting one. 

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