ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the plasma chemistry modeling. Plasma chemistry modeling can provide useful information on the precursors for thin film deposition or nanostructure formation. The chapter provides an overview of different modeling approaches that can be applied for plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of carbon-based materials. The chapter summarizes modeling efforts for silicon-related films, to demonstrate that the work on carbon films is representative of PECVD in general. It illustrates that the most suitable approaches for plasma chemistry modeling are chemical kinetics modeling, fluid modeling, and hybrid MC-fluid simulations. These approaches can take into account a rich plasma chemistry without significant computational effort. Moreover, in some hybrid models, the interaction with the substrate can be described, accounting for thin film deposition, albeit in a simplified way. The chapter deals with the simulation of the (plasma-based) growth mechanisms for thin films and nanostructured materials, where the authors have focused on carbon-based materials.
