Ultrafine ceramic structures based on the nitrides and carbides of titanium and silicon have been synthesized in a computer-controlled hot-wall CVD reactor. Layered deposits have been produced by pulsing the reactant gases judiciously under software control. The development of a columnar structure which is endemic to most CVD materials has been suppressed. Skeletal structures of filaments have also been grown with appropriate catalysts by the vapor-liquid-solid mechanism and immediately infiltrated in situ with different materials to produce filament-reinforced composite coatings.Ultrafine-grained carbon films and filaments have been grown from methane-hydrogen mixtures by RF plasma-assisted CVD. The microstructural features of these materials are of the order of 20 to 100 nm. The subgrain structure determined by Raman spectroscopy varies from 2 to 3 nm.

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