Large temperature range model for the atmospheric pressure Chemical vapor deposition of Silicon dioxide films on thermosensitive substrates

Coating complex surfaces by functional amorphous silica films for new applications including energy harvesting and health depends on the operating range and robustness of their deposition process. In this paper, we propose a new kinetic model for the atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition of SiO2 films from TEOS/O-2/O-3 valid in the 150-520 degrees C temperature range, thus allowing for treating thermally sensitive substrates. For this, we revisit reported chemical schemes in Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations considering original experimental data on the deposition rate of SiO2 films from a hot-wall reactor. The new model takes into account for the first time a thermal dependency of the direct formation of SiO2 from TEOS and O-3 and yields excellent agreement in both shape and value between experimental and calculated local deposition rate profiles. The model provides non-measurable information such as local distributions of species concentration and reaction rates, which are valuable for developing optimized CVD reactor designs. Original solutions for the introduction of the reactants are proposed, to uniformly coat complex and/or large parts at a wide temperature range. (C) 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.