A comprehensive
systematic method for chemical vapor deposition
modeling consisting of seven well-defined steps is presented. The
method is general in the sense that it is not adapted to a certain
type of chemistry or reactor configuration. The method is demonstrated
using silicon carbide (SiC) as a model system, with accurate matching
to measured data without tuning of the model. We investigate the cause
of several experimental observations for which previous research reports
only have had speculative explanations. In contrast to previous assumptions,
we can show that SiCl2 does not contribute to SiC deposition.
We can confirm the presence of larger molecules at both low and high
C/Si ratios, which have been thought to cause so-called step-bunching.
We can also show that high concentrations of Si lead to other Si molecules
other than the ones contributing to growth, which also explains why
the C/Si ratio needs to be lower at these conditions to maintain high
material quality as well as the observed saturation in deposition
rates. Due to its independence of a chemical system and reactor configuration,
the method paves the way for a general predictive CVD modeling tool.