Multiphysics multi-model simulation of large-area plasma chemical reactors

Facing an ever-growing demand for large-area solar cells and flat-panel displays, the industry strives to produce larger, cheaper and better performing thin films. Computer simulation has proved to be a reliable and cost-efficient way to optimize existing technologies, to develop and test new ideas. The most widely used technology of thin film production is plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), which involves multiple physical and chemical processes: electromagnetic wave propagation, plasma-chemical processes (ionization, dissociation, excitation, recombination, attachment, ion bombardment, etc.), convective and diffusive transport, thermal effects, gas-phase chemical reactions, heterogeneous reactions on the surface, and the target process of film growth. The temporal and spatial scales of these processes span many orders of magnitude (from nanoseconds to hours and from Angstrom to meters). Modeling these coupled processes with a fine level of detail and appropriate scale in three dimensions is still out of reach of modern computational resources; and special modeling and simulation approaches are required to meet the challenge [1].