Coating Of Glass By Chemical Vapor Deposition

Recent applications of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to the coating of glass are reviewed. The advantages in CVD coating lie in the ability to control coating thickness, to permeate porous bodies or fibre structures, to use high purity reactants or to carry out the coating process in a fludized bed of particles. Achieving uniformity of deposition while avoiding gas phase nucleation and growth of surface protrusions is discussed in terms of the mass transport and kinetic impedances in the deposition process. The advantages of CVD over the related pyrolytic spray process which is more widely used to coat glass involve trade-offs that may limit CVD to the more specialized applications.