5.1 Introduction

Deposition of thin films has been a subject of intensive study for almost a century, and many methods have been developed and improved. Many such techniques have been developed and widely used in industries, which in turn provides a great driving force for further development and improvement of the deposition techniques. There are many excellent textbooks and monographs available. ^{[1] [3]} In this chapter, we will briefly introduce the fundamentals and summarize typical experimental approaches of various wellestablished techniques of film deposition. Film growth methods can be generally divided into two groups: vapor-phase deposition and liquid-based growth. The former includes, for example, evaporation, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), sputtering, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and atomic layer deposition (ALD). Examples of the latter are electrochemical deposition, chemical solution deposition (CSD), Langmuir-Blodgett films and self-assembled monolayers (SAMs).

The film deposition involves predominantly heterogeneous processes including heterogeneous chemical reactions, evaporation, adsorption and desorption on growth surfaces, heterogeneous nucleation and surface growth. In addition, most film deposition and characterization processes are conducted under a vacuum. Therefore, in this chapter, before discussing the details of various methods for thin film deposition and growth, a brief discussion will be devoted to the fundamentals of heterogeneous nucleation followed by a general introduction to vacuum science and technology. Other aspects of heterogeneous processes and relevant vacuum issues will be incorporated into the various deposition methods where the subject is relevant.