UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Characteristics of aerosol assisted and conventional chemical vapour deposition of metal oxide thin films on glass, with or without metal dopants

Walters, G; (2012) Characteristics of aerosol assisted and conventional chemical vapour deposition of metal oxide thin films on glass, with or without metal dopants. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London). Green open access

[thumbnail of EngD.GW.pdf] PDF
EngD.GW.pdf
Available under License : See the attached licence file.

Download (31MB)

Abstract

This thesis describes the characteristics and properties of aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) and conventional atmospheric chemical vapour deposition (CVD) metal oxide thin films on glass substrates with or without metal, Au, Ag, Cu or Al dopants. Host metal oxide matrices including, ZnO and TiO2 with various dopants are known to give specific physical and optical properties desired by many industries and have various potential properties e.g. thermochromic, photochromic and are known as ‘intelligent coatings’. The AACVD synthesis technique was used singularly or in combination with APCVD to achieve thin films on glass substrates either in static or dynamic situations with a range of temperatures (300-600 ºC). Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Fluent™ software, was used in a 2-equation, numerical study of fluid flow, velocity, particle trajectory, evaporation and thermophoretic effects on six combined AACVD/APCVD vertical reactor head designs; two designs were then selected as experimental prototypes and tested on a pilot rig chosen to more accurately simulate commercial Float glass production. Various functionalities of the thin films were analysed using transmittance/reflectance spectroscopy, RZ ink and stearic acid photocatalysis tests, resistivity and a variety of analytical techniques including SEM, XRD and XPS were used. The main findings include the effect of noble metal dopants (particularly Au and Ag), substrate synthesis temperature, fluid flow and droplet size have on the physical and chemical properties such as the morphology, crystallinity, water surface contact angle of the host metal oxide matrices. The nebulised AACVD droplet size, for solvent systems, are critical for deposition of the precursor chemicals onto the surface of the substrate, CFD particle trajectory of nebulised AACVD methanol droplets were calculated to be 1 order of magnitude too small to overcome the main forces of influence aerodynamic drag and at higher synthesis temperature evaporation.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Title: Characteristics of aerosol assisted and conventional chemical vapour deposition of metal oxide thin films on glass, with or without metal dopants
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Keywords: chemical vapour deposition, thin films, metal oxide, aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition, metal dopants, Noble metal dopants, gold dopant, silver dopant, copper dopant, zinc oxide, titania films, RZ indicator ink, computational fluid dynamics, k-e Realizable Model, k-w SST Model, 2 equation numerical modelling, thermophoresis, droplet trajectory modelling, discrete modelling, turbulent modelling, turbulent flow, laminar flow, volume mesh generation, Fluent, Gambit, evaporation modelling, stearic acid test, Al dopant
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Chemistry
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1356840
Downloads since deposit
393Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item