Preliminary studies of atmospheric pressure plasma enhanced CVD (AP-PECVD) of thin oxide films

Thin oxide films have a number of applications in diverse areas such as microelectronics, precision optics and catalysis. The use of plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) for depositing such films has an advantage over thermal CVD as there is the possibility of operating at reduced substrate temperatures whilst still producing films of high quality. However, PECVD traditionally requires a vacuum system. This can lead to higher capital and operating costs. For this reason some relatively new CVD processes based on various types of electrical discharge sustained at atmospheric pressure (AP-PECVD) have attracted considerable interest. We have investigated the use of a dielectric barrier discharge as a source of plasma. This very simple technique has potential for large volume applications and preliminary studies have given promising results for the properties of silicon dioxide layers.