Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD)

Chemical vapour deposition is a well known process is which a solid deposited

on a heating surface by a chemical reaction from a vapour or gas phase. CVD is
mostely useful in micro-fabrication processes such as manocrystalline, polycrystalline,
amorphous and epitaxial. These materials include silicon, fibre carbon nanofibers,
carbon nanotubes, SiO2 and synthetic diamonds.

Apparatus:

A typical CVD system consists of the following parts:

(a) Sources and feed line for gases

(b) Gas mass flow controllers for sending the gases into the system
(c) Reaction chamber or reactor
(d) System for heating up the wafer on which the film is to be deposited
(e) Temperature sensors

Working concept:

Chemical reaction of gaseous precursor (raw material) on a heating substrate

yields a fully dense deposit. Figure shows a typical CVD system with depositing
chamber and CVD process by controlling the temperature, pressure and
concentrations. A newly formed molecule sticks to the wafer surface and participants
in the formation of a nanolayer. A simplified concept diagram is shown as in Figure
above.

Basic Process: it has following steps

(a) Basing on the nanomaterials to be produced, a required reactant gases and

diluent inert gases are introduced into the reaction chamber.
(b) The reactants gets adsorbed on the surface of the substrate and undergo
chemical reactions with the substrate to form the film and
(c) The gaseous by products of the reactions are desorbed and evacuated from the
reaction chamber.

Types of chemical vapour deposition: a number of forms of CVD are in wide use.
These processes differ in the means by which chemical reactions are initiated (e.g.
activation process) and process conditions.

Types basing on temperature:

(a) Hot –wall CVD: the heating system heats up not only the wafer but the walls of
the reactor also.
(b) Cold-wall: the heating systems heats up wafer only.

Types based on operating pressure:

(a) Atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD) reactors operate at atmospheric pressure

and therefore the simplest in design.
(b) Low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) reactors operate at medium vacuum (30-250 Pa)
and higher temperature than APCVD reactors.

Advantages of CVD

(a) Useful for coatings or freestanding structures of a wide range of metals and
ceramics.
(b) Can produce mesh or near-mesh intricate shapes.
(c) Gives high purity deposits (> 99.995% purity).
 (d) Conform consistently to outline of substrate surface and internal passages with
high length to diameter ratios and coats powders also.
(e) Has neat theoretical as deposited density.
(f) Has controllable thickness and morphology and can concurrently coat several
apparatus.
(g) Forms alloys
(h) Creep into fiber performs and foam structures

Applications

(a) Biocompatibility between natural and synthetic materials can be increased by

copper capping and anti-corrosive coating.
(b) It can be used on large range of industrial components such as aircraft and land
gas turbine blades. Timing chain pins for the automotive industry, radiant grills
for gas cookers and items of chemical plant to resist various attacks by carbon,
oxygen and sulphur.
(c) Used to provide the photo resist adhesion for semiconductor wafers, silane
adhesion for microarrays such as protein, tissue.
(d) Coating on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) to reduces stiction.
Stiction is the friction which tends to prevent stationary surfaces from being set
in motion.

Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD)

It is a vaporization coating technique where the raw materials (precursors) are in

solid form. It has following steps.

(a) Evaporation: materials to be deposited as coating are taken in the form of target
and are bombarded by a high energy source (such as a beam of electrons or
ions or heating by a filament) in a vacuum chamber. The source material gets
heated and starts to boil and then evaporate.
(b) Transport: in transportation vaporized atoms from the target material move to
the substrate to be coated.
 (c) Reaction: the transported atoms react with appropriate gas in transportation
stage.
(d) Deposition: here coating builds up on the substrate surface. Figure shows a
schematic diagram of the principles behind a common PVD method.

Advantage

(a) Almost any types of inorganic and organic material can be used.
(b) The process is more environmental friendly than processes such as
electroplating.

Disadvantages

(a) Extremely difficult to coat undercuts and similar surface features

(b) High capital cost is required
(c) Operates at high vacuums and temperatures.
(d) PVS requires skilled operators.
(e) The rate of coating deposition is usually quite slow.

Applications

(a) PVD coatings are generally used to improve hardness, wear resistance and
oxidation resistance.
(b) Coatings are useful in a wide range of applications such as aerospace,
automotive, surgical/ medical, dues and moulds for materials processing,
cutting tools and fire arms.