What is it for?

PECVD is an important tool to grow rapidly crystalline, semicrystalline, or amorphous material layers. It usually combines good film quality with high growth rates and answers industrial scale manufacturing needs. Thus, it is extensively used in the semiconductor industry.

Plasma deposition is specifically useful to grow materials conformally and develop functional or passivation layers. The process can also be adapted to deposit materials on complex substrates with structures sensitive to temperature (metal layers, nanostructured surfaces…).

How does it work?

PECVD is a well-known chemical vapor deposition process. Chemical compounds are mixed in a vapor phase often diluted in an inert carrier gas (typically Ar with a pressure close to 1mTorr) and react to grow a solid film on a substrate. Many parameters in the plasma phase or at the substrate surface may induce specific reactions that will lead to specific properties in the grown materials. For instance, radio frequency plasmas allows for insulating material deposition as alternate polarities prevent charges buildups at anode/cathode surfaces or even participate in the in situ resputtering of the deposited film through ion bombardment form plasma (possible effects on material density).