Engineering Commons^™

The Design And Fabrication Of An Atomic Layer Deposition Reactor For Coating Powders, Natalie Altvater

Honors College

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a self-limiting synthesis technique for the growth of conformal ultrathin films on solid state materials. The high conformality of the ALD method is ideal for coating porous, high surface area materials. A fluidized bed reactor (FBR) was designed and built for functionalizing a powder using ALD. The particle bed was fluidized using an inert argon gas. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) was deposited on a high surface area powder substrate, γ-phase aluminum oxide, via ALD using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water (H2O) as gas phase precursors. Depositions were done under low pressure conditions. A BET analysis was done …