From Carbon Nanostructures to New Photoluminescence Sources: An Overview of New Perspectives and Emerging Applications of Low‐Pressure PECVD

Abstract

Low-pressure, plasma-enhanced (PE)CVD is a powerful and versatile technique that has been used for thin-film deposition and surface treatment since the early 1960s. However, it is only recently that it has been used in applications other than the different stages of microelectronic circuit fabrication. Now, PECVD is being used in emerging applications due to new materials and process requirements in a wide variety of areas, such as biomedical applications, solar cells, fuel cell development, fusion research, or the synthesis of silicon nanocrystals showing efficient photoluminescence, useful for future solid-state light sources. These new scenarios have stimulated further development of novel PECVD diagnostic techniques, together with fundamental experimental and theoretical studies aimed at a better understanding of some of the basic processes underlying the plasma/surface interaction. This paper gives an overview of some new research areas where PECVD is finding promising applications.

Some Aspects of Reactive Complex Plasmas

“…It is not the aim here to describe and discuss these problems in detail but to summarize the most important facts which are also essential for the understanding of reactive dusty plasmas. A lot of more details can be found for example in [8,[33][34][35].…”

Surface Plasmon Enhancement of Optical Absorption in Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

“…Thin-film silicon-based solar cells are commonly fabricated using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, electron beam evaporation, hot filament-assisted deposition, magnetron sputtering, and some other approaches that are compatible with the present-day microelectronic manufacturing processes [3][4][5][6]. These approaches are rapidly gaining momentum with the continuously increasing use of nanostructured materials to enhance solar cell performance [7][8][9][10][11].…”

Angular distribution of carbon ion flux in a nanotube array during the plasma process by the Monte Carlo technique

“…4,5 At present, the array properties that are mainly determined by the structure and composition of individual nanostructures ͑e.g., conductivity, electron emission from the nanotube tip, long-range ordering, etc.͒ are well investigated. [6][7][8] However, complex ͑e.g., correlated͒ processes in dense patterns that can strongly influence the growth mode of individual nanotubes and the properties of the whole array have not attracted the attention they merit. 9 Since the nanotube arrays are usually grown using external fluxes of carbon atoms to the substrate, the distribution of the carbon flux inside the pattern strongly determines the nanotube growth kinetics.…”