Reactive chemical vapor deposition of Ti3SiC2 with and without pressure pulses: Effect on the ternary carbide texture

Ti3SiC2 layers were grown by reactive chemical vapor deposition (RCVD) of a H2/TiCl4 gaseous mixture on previously deposited SiC layers. A comparison was made between classical RCVD in which the gases continuously flow at a constant low pressure during several minutes in the reactor and pressure-pulsed RCVD (P-RCVD) in which the reactor is (periodically) (re)filled with the H2/TiCl4 gas and (re)emptied every few seconds. Long duration single treatments resulted in similar thick multi-phased coatings growing by solid state diffusion with both RCVD and P-RCVD methods. Conversely, in relation with the steps of nucleation and growth by surface reaction, the repetition of short duration SiC deposition/RCVD sequences with or without pressure pulses gave rise to Ti3SiC2 coatings with different textures.