Interfacial Phenomena During Chemical Vapor Deposition

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a material synthesis method whereby the constituents of the vapor phase react to form a single or multicomponent, vitreous or crystalline solid film, coating or bulk shape on a substrate surface. Typical reactions include pyrolysis, reduction, oxidation, hydrolysis, nitride and carbide formation and synthesis. The desired deposition reaction is almost always heterogeneous i. e., it occurs at the substrate surface rather than in the gas phase (homogeneous reaction), as the latter type of reaction normally causes deposits composed of powder or flakes. Epitaxy is the regular oriented growth of a monocrystalline substance on another one. When an epitaxial film is grown on a substrate of the same type of material, one has homoepitaxy; if growth occurs on a different substance, it is considered heteroepitaxy. Kern and Ban¹ have recently reviewed the CVD process as well as provided an extensive bibliography concerned with fundamental aspects, reactor systems and process control techniques, applications for preparing important and representative materials and previous reviews and conference proceedings.