PATTERN-FORMATION IN SOLID FILM GROWTH DURING CVD

This paper deals with the evolution of a gas-solid interface during gr owth of amorphous CVD films. The aim of the analysis is to show that a comprehensive gas-solid CVD model may simplify significantly under co nditions of two limiting cases: kinetic and diffusion-limited growth. The linear stability behavior of the simplified model was found to be almost identical to that of the original and more comprehensive model. It was found that planar film growth was inherently stable under kine tically controlled deposition conditions, but under diffusion-limited conditions, planar film stability depended on the magnitude of the dim ensionless group theta Pe, which represents a Damkohler number of depo sition. Numerical solution of the simplified model showed that an incr ease in theta Pez adversely affected the uniformity of him deposition. Predicted morphological phenomena were found to be very similar to ex perimental observations (Viljoen, et al., 1994).