Kinetics in thermal laser-assisted chemical vapour deposition of titanium carbide

Abstract The kinetics in thermal laser-assisted chemical vapour deposition (LCVD) of TiC and the influence of growth conditions on the composition and morphology of the TiC deposit have been investigated. LCVD was used in combination with hot wall CVD for the deposition of TiC. The reaction gas mixture consisted of TiCl 4 , C 2 H 4 and H 2 . The deposited strings exhibited a rather rough morphology which was strongly influenced by the deposition parameters. For a deposition temperature of 2000 K an apparent activation energy of 590 kJ mol −1 was measured. This activation energy is higher than the value previously reported for standard hot wall CVD of TiC, and is probably due to an ineffective activation of the gas phase in thermal LCVD.