Geometry of Chemical Beam Vapor Deposition System for Efficient Combinatorial Investigations of Thin Oxide Films: Deposited Film Properties versus Precursor Flow Simulations

An innovative deposition system has been developed to construct complex material thin films from single-element precursors by chemical beam vapor deposition (CBVD). It relies on well distributed punctual sources that emit individually controlled precursor beams toward the substrate under high vacuum conditions combined with well designed cryo-panel surfaces that avoid secondary precursor sources. In this configuration the impinging flows of all precursors can be calculated at any substrate point considering the controlled angular distribution of the emitted beams and the ballistic trajectory of the molecules. The flow simulation is described in details. The major advantage of the deposition system is its ability to switch between several possible controlled combinatorial configurations, in which the substrate is exposed to a wide range of flow compositions from the different precursors, and a uniform configuration, in which the substrate is exposed to a homogeneous flow, even on large substrates, with high precursor use efficiency. Agreement between calculations and depositions carried out in various system configurations and for single, binary, or ternary oxides in mass transfer limited regime confirms that the distribution of incoming precursors on the substrate follows the theoretical models. Additionally, for some selected precursors and in some selected conditions, almost 100% of the precursor impinging on the substrate is incorporated to the deposit. The results of this work confirm the potentialities of CBVD both as a research tool to investigate efficiently deposition processes and as a fabrication tool to deposit on large surfaces.