Modeling of chemical vapor deposition: I. General considerations

Abstract

In this study a general analysis of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes carried out in open flow systems is presented. In this treatment the successive process steps, namely mass transport in the gas phase, adsorption, chemical reaction and surface diffusion are included. The proposed approach allows computation of the activity of the material to be deposited; this quantity is determined by a balance between the rates of gas phase diffusion and of surface processes. An expression is presented relating the activity near the interface to the growth rate of the deposited layer. It is shown that the same approach can be used for etching conditions.