On turbulent flows in cold-wall CVD reactors

With the increase in diameter of the wafers and the tendency to increase operating pressure of chemical vapor deposition reactors, the flow in these reactors may turn turbulent as a result of buoyancy. The effect of turbulence on the CVD process in a single wafer reactor has been studied numerically with large eddy simulations. It is found that the free-convection induced turbulence increases the heat flux, whereas the conditions are uniform in a large part of the reactor as a result of turbulent mixing, in principle offering the possibilities for a high, uniform deposition rate.