Thermal Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition of SiC

Abstract

To develop a new surface modification capable of controlling the film quality at a high deposition rate, a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) process using thermal plasma jet was studied. In this work, a method of most suitably supplying reaction gas into thermal plasma jet which was a high velocity flow was examined using spectral analysis by a two-dimensional imaging spectrometer. A SiC film was deposited on graphite using SiCl₄ and CH₄ as reaction gases and Ar-10%H₂ gases as plasma forming gases. The maximum deposition rate of 2.78×10^-7 m/sec was obtained by supplying each of the above reaction gases in an amount of 2.67×10^-5 m³/sec. The deposited SiC film was a columnar structure, the hardness being about HV 2400.