Thin films, or thin layers of materials, are all around us, from the photochromic coating on windows to the hard coating on drills. All electronics are constructed from stacks of thin films with carefully controlled properties.
One of the most important methods to deposit thin films is CVD, which uses chemical reactions between precursor molecules containing the atoms needed for the film. In our work to develop better CVD routes, we develop new precursor molecules, experiment with new ways of using plasma discharges in CVD, and explore various time-resolved CVD approaches and we perform computational studies of CVD gas phase- and surface chemistry.