Dynamic mixtures applied on Deposition techniques0 pages

MCQ Gas Blender 100 Series
High Performance Gas flow Dilutor & Gas flow Mixing System with User Interface
www.mcqinst.com Gas Blender 100 Series Application Note 1/4
Introduction
Over the last 20 years, Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)
processes has taken a key-role in a wide range of
technological advanced manufacturing. Today the industrial
processes for anti-wear cutting tools coating and
microprocessor production share the same deposition
techniques, proving a constant self-developing process that
is extremely useful and versatile. CVD is a generic name for
a huge family of processes that involves the use of gaseous
precursors in order to produce high-purity and high
performance solid materials. The gaseous phase usually is
thermally activated inside the CVD chamber by an adequate
heat source to produce a chemical reaction that leads to the
desired products formation, and subsequently to the
products deposition on the target-substrate. CVD involves
the use of hot filaments to activate reactions (HFCVD) and it
also requires extremely low working pressures. Different
type of heat sources (e.g. plasma, laser) have proved to be
useful and now plasma-enhanced deposition (PECVD) and
Laser CVD (LCVD) are of common use. Pressure is not a
problem anymore since, in some applications, the
Application Note
deposition can be performed in atmospheric pressure
(APCVD). The deposition results strongly depend on
process parameters and hardware configuration settings.
This strong dependence requires a fine control and a fine
regulation for each step of this technique. A particularly
precise care on the gas phase composed by the reactants
must be exercised. An instrument capable of producing gas
mixtures with high precision and designed to be versatile
and easily manageable is thus required for this kind of
applications. The MCQ Instruments offers it all with its Gas
Blender 100 Series, a product specifically built for 3
components gas mixture.
CVD applications
The versatility of CVD technique(s) is proven by its use in a
wide array of different research and application fields. The
experimentation fields can be summarized in four main
categories: thin and thick film applications, powder
treatments (fluidized bed CVD) and carbon nanotubes
research.
Thin films
This term refers to nanometers in coatings up to a few
micrometers thickness, made to improve the specific
performance of a base material. The synthetic diamond
(CVD diamond), due to its unique chemical and physical
properties, is a perfect example of thin film application. The
hardness and chemical inertness of micro- and nano-crystal
diamond films are generally used to increase the wear
resistance of metallic/ceramic components [1,2] while single
crystal diamonds take a crucial role in the making of cutting
tools [3,4]. In the last 20 years CVD diamond has proved
itself to be a versatile material studied nowadays for
electronic applications in the radiotherapy [5] and in the
MCQ Gas Blender 100 Series Application
Dynamic mixtures applied on
Deposition techniques
A CVD chamber during the deposition process