Publications

The effects of ozone (O 3) on tin oxide growth rates from mixtures of monobutyltintrichloride (MBTC), O 2 and H 2O are reported. The results indicate that O 3 increases the growth rate under kinetically controlled conditions (MBTC + O 2, 25 torr), but under mass-transport-control (200 torr and/or addition of H 2O to the reactant gases), growth rates are either unaffected or decrease. Kinetic modeling of the gas-phase reactions suggests that O, H, and OH radicals react at the surface to increase the growth rate, but higher pressures reduce their concentrations via recombination. In addition, higher pressures result in increased concentrations of less reactive tin halides, which are decomposition products of MBTC. It appears that when H 2O is a reactant, these radicals reduce the concentration of the tin oxide precursor (thought to be an MBTC-H 2O complex), which significantly decreases the growth rate.