An Axisymmetric Numerical Model for Simulating Kinetically-Limited Growth of a Cylindrical Rod in 3D Laser-induced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Laser-induced chemical vapor deposition (LCVD) is an important process for freeform microfabrication of high aspect ratio prototypes. The system consists of a laser beam focused onto a movable substrate in a vacuum chamber. Heat from the laser at or near the focal spot of the beam causes gas in the chamber to react. As a result, solid-phase reaction products are deposited on the substrate to form the microstructure. In this paper, we develop a numerical model for simulating growth of an axisymmetric cylindrical rod by pre-specifying the surface temperatures required for growing the rod and then by solving for the laser power that satisfies the pre-specified temperatures. The solution using least squares is obtained by minimizing the sum of square deviations between the pre-specified surface temperatures and the calculated temperatures from the heat equation with a given laser power as a heat source. Model predictions of the laser power over growth time helped in optimizing the growth process. Rods grown base