Chemical vapour deposition and atomic layer deposition of amorphous and nanocrystalline metallic coatings: towards deposition of multimetallic films

This paper provides a prospective insight on chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) as dry techniques for the processing of amorphous and nanocrystalline metallic thin films. These techniques are part of major technologies in application fields such as microelectronics, energy, or protective coatings. From thermodynamic analysis, areas of investigation to generate a set of materials with the strongest propensity for amorphization as well as useful guidelines for the target phase material deposition are provided. Prospective to develop MOCVD (metalorganic chemical vapour deposition) and ALD of intermetallic films, in view of fabrication of metallic glass thin films is proposed. Examples from selected ALD and MOCVD single element metallic deposition processes will be described to illustrate the effect of deposition parameters on the physico-chemical properties of the films. This processing approach is particularly promising for metallic glass thin films