Additive fabrication and the mechanisms of nucleation and growth in chemical vapor deposition processes

In this Account, we present several representative studies of thin-film gro wth by chemical vapor deposition, with particular emphasis given to elucida ting the mechanistic, energetic, and structural aspects of nucleation and g rowth. These understandings have allowed us to develop new methods to depos it patterned, as opposed to blanket, thin films. We show how such procedure s can be exploited to effect the directed assembly (i.e., the additive fabr ication) of a device architecture.