ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a discussion of the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique and its application in synthesizing vanadium dioxide thin films. The concept of CVD can be easily understood by its name: the film is deposited on the substrate through a vapor-phase chemical reaction. Compared with other film deposition techniques, CVD is attractive in both academia and industry due to some unique advantages it offers, such as superb uniformity, a wide application range, and a relatively low requirement of vacuum. The chapter introduces the definition of CVD and its typical process, followed by some commonly used CVD methods. Atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) is one of the most widely applied CVD methods due to its simplicity, fast deposition rate, and good repeatability. Different from APCVD, the pressure involved in metal-organic chemical vapor deposition varies from atmospheric pressure by several pascals. A plasma–enhanced chemical vapor deposition system is categorized according to the frequency of the electrical field.
