Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) continues to generate immutable interest as a method of producing thin fluorocarbon films. This impetus stems from both the process advantages of CVD and the extensive market potential for the resultant films. Fluorocarbon films find extremely diverse applications because of their unique electrical, chemical and surface properties. They are currently being evaluated, among other applications, as dielectric interconnects in microelectronic circuits and as passivation coatings in clinical devices. CVD utilizes gas phase chemistries in a low to ultra-low pressure environment to produce well-defined, high quality films in a controllable yet tunable fashion. Depending on the route of species activation and fragmentation, CVD, in general, can be classified as either plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD) or thermal CVD. The former creates a plasma of ions, electrons and excited neutrals through electrical excitation while the latter causes gas breakdown by thermal means. In today's society where there is increasing awareness and concern on environmental, safety and health (ESH) issues, CVD has the added advantage of being a relatively cleaner process compared to other thin film deposition techniques e.g., spin coating. Chemical exposure, waste and emissions can already be mitigated significantly by virtue of it being a vacuum, low material concentration process.
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