ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses selected topics on the plasma chemical vapor deposition (PCVD) of thin films. The coatings deposited by PCVD can be broadly characterized as polymeric, non-polymeric, amorphous, and crystalline. PCVD is of three types such as plasma polymerization, plasma epitaxy and heterogeneous chemical reactions, each of which finds a variety of uses in microelectronic and other applications. The chapter describes polymeric thin-film deposition because of its importance to microelectronics and other major industrial sectors. A potential biomedical application of thin films is in the culture of tissue and micro-organisms, in which the surfaces must be relatively wettable by the fluids and nutrients involved. The subject of polymeric PCVD thin films includes a wide variety of morphological structures, including classical linear polymers, in which monomers, the basic building blocks, are linked in long repeating linear chains. On a larger scale of size, PCVD methods are used to form macroelectronic devices for use in hybrid or ordinary electronic circuits.
