Chemical vapour deposition enhanced by atmospheric microwave plasmas: a large-scale industrial process or the next nanomanufacturing tool?

This paper describes several specific aspects of atmospheric plasma deposition carried out with a microwave resonant cavity. Deposition over a wide substrate is first studied. We show that high deposition rates (several hundreds of mu m h(-1)) are due to localization of fluxes on the substrate by convection when slightly turbulent flows are used. Next, we describe possible routes to localize deposition over a nanometre-sized area. Scaling down atmospheric plasma deposition is possible and two strategies to reach nanometre scales are described. Finally, we study self-organization of SiO(2) nanodots deposited by chemical vapour deposition at atmospheric pressure enhanced by an Ar-O(2) micro-afterglow operating at high temperature (>1200 K). When the film being deposited is thin enough (similar to 500 nm) nanodots are obtained and they can be assembled into threads to create patterned surfaces. When the coating becomes thicker (similar to 1 mu m), and for relatively high content in HMDSO, SiO(2) walls forming hexagonal cells are obtained.