Surface thickness allocations of a polymer film grown in a glow discharge on a flat solid substrate were studied as the total effect produced by several simultaneous discharge processes: surface and volumetric mechanisms of polymerization, heat and mass transfer flows induced by the discharge and gravitational drift of the polymeric microparticles. Some kinds of motion of aerosols entrained by gas flows were visualized using laser probing. Scanning the film thickness in various directions at the substrate surface was carried out by multiple-beam microinterferometry. The results are presented for pure hexamethyldisiloxane and hexamethyldisilazane glow discharges, since these monomers were most capable of generating polymeric particles, though all the other monomers used gave qualitatively identical results. Peculiarities observed in a film relief are interpreted as results of deposition of the polymeric microparticles from corresponding flows of a dispersive gas–polymer mixture.
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