• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 1995

AISI 304 stainless steel has high resistance to corrosion due to the presence of a self-healing chromium oxide film on the surface, which also accounts for the difficulty in plating. Surface cleaning of this alloy is of fundamental importance in gold plating since its effectiveness puts an upper limit on the quality of the final coating. The cleaning of AISI 304 stainless steel was investigated with elimination of artificial passive oxide film and degreasing of remaining buffing wax as stearic acid. The familiar cleaning methods i.e. ultrasonic cleaning, electro-cleaning and activation treatment were fabricated in this study. Activation treatment showed best cleaning efficiency for elimination of passive oxide film among these methods, which was also confirmed by AES (Auger electron spectrometer) analysis. However, the best condition of cleaning was obtained by combining these methods. Electrocleaning time, for degreasing the stearic acid layer, was decreased with increasing amount of added KCN.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.714-720
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• 2023

Laser cleaning has the advantages of environmental protection, precision, and high efficiency, and has good prospects for application in removing oxide films on the surface of aluminum alloy. This paper discusses the cleaning threshold and cleaning mechanism of aluminum alloy surface oxide film. A nanosecond pulsed laser was used to remove a 5-㎛-thick oxide film from the surface of 7A04 aluminum alloy, and the target surface temperature and cleaning depth were simulated. The effects of different laser energy densities on the surface morphology of the aluminum alloy were analyzed, and the plasma motion process was recorded using a high-speed camera. The temperature measurement results of the experiment are close to the simulation results. The results show that the laser cleaning of aluminum alloy oxide film is mainly based on the vaporization mechanism and the shock wave generated by the explosion.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.459-464
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• 2012

We investigated cleaning effects using $NH_4OH$ solution on the surface of Cu film. A 20 nm Cu film was deposited on Ti / p-Si (100) by sputter deposition and was exposed to air for growth of the native Cu oxide. In order to remove the Cu native oxide, an $NH_4OH$ cleaning process with and without TS-40A pre-treatment was carried out. After the $NH_4OH$ cleaning without TS-40A pretreatment, the sheet resistance Rs of the Cu film and the surface morphology changed slightly(${\Delta}Rs:{\sim}10m{\Omega}/sq.$). On the other hand, after $NH_4OH$ cleaning with TS-40A pretreatment, the Rs of the Cu film changed abruptly (${\Delta}Rs:till{\sim}700m{\Omega}/sq.$); in addition, cracks showed on the surface of the Cu film. According to XPS results, Si ingredient was detected on the surface of all Cu films pretreated with TS-40A. This Si ingredient(a kind of silicate) may result from the TS-40A solution, because sodium metasilicate is included in TS-40A as an alkaline degreasing agent. Finally, we found that the $NH_4OH$ cleaning process without pretreatment using an alkaline cleanser containing a silicate ingredient is more useful at removing Cu oxides on Cu film. In addition, we found that in the $NH_4OH$ cleaning process, an alkaline cleanser like Metex TS-40A, containing sodium metasilicate, can cause cracks on the surface of Cu film.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.188-196
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• 2003

Liquid-assisted cleaning technology utilizing a nanosecond laser pulse is effective for removing submicron particulates from a variety of solid substrates. In the technique, saturated vapor is condensed on a solid surface to form a thin liquid film and the film is evaporated explosively by laser heating. The present work studies the role of liquid-film evaporation in the cleaning process. First, optical interferometry is employed for in-situ monitoring the displacement of the laser-irradiated sample in the cleaning process. The experiments are performed for estimating the recoil force exerted on the target with and without liquid deposition. Secondly, time-resolved visualization and optical reflectance probing are also conducted for monitoring the phase-change kinetics and plume dynamics in vaporization of thin liquid layers. Discussions are made on the effect of liquid-film thickness and dynamics of plume and acoustic wave. The results confirm that cleaning force is generated when the bubble nuclei initially grow in the strongly superheated liquid.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.103-104
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• 2006

$Pb(Zr,Ti)O_3(PZT)$ is very attractive ferroelectric materials for ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) applications because of its high polarization ability and low process temperature. However, Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) pressure and velocity must be carefully adjusted because FeRAM shrinks to high density devices. The contaminations such as slurry residues due to the absence of the exclusive cleaning chemicals are enough to influence on the degradation of PZT thin film capacitors. The surface characteristics of PZT thin film were investigated by the change of process parameters and the cleaning process. Both the low CMP pressure and the cleaning process must be employed, even if the removal rate and the yield were decreased, to reduce the fatigue of PZT thin film capacitors fabricated by damascene process. Like this, fatigue characteristics were partially controlled by the regulation of the CMP process parameters in PZT damascene process. And the exclusive cleaning chemicals for PZT thin films were developed in this work.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.276-280
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• 2010

Copper(Cu) as an interconnecting metal layer can replace aluminum (Al) in IC fabrication since Cu has low electrical resistivity, showing high immunity to electromigration compared to Al. However, it is very difficult for copper to be patterned by the dry etching processes. The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been introduced and widely used as the mainstream patterning technique for Cu in the fabrication of deep submicron integrated circuits in light of its capability to reduce surface roughness. But this process leaves a large amount of residues on the wafer surface, which must be removed by the post-CMP cleaning processes. Copper corrosion is one of the critical issues for the copper metallization process. Thus, in order to understand the copper corrosion problems in post-CMP cleaning solutions and study the effects of DC biases and post-CMP cleaning solution concentrations on the Cu film, a constant voltage was supplied at various concentrations, and then the output currents were measured and recorded with time. Most of the cases, the current was steadily decreased (i.e. resistance was increased by the oxidation). In the lowest concentration case only, the current was steadily increased with the scarce fluctuations. The higher the constant supplied DC voltage values, the higher the initial output current and the saturated current values. However the time to be taken for it to be saturated was almost the same for all the DC supplied voltage values. It was indicated that the oxide formation was not dependent on the supplied voltage values and 1 V was more than enough to form the oxide. With applied voltages lower than 3 V combined with any concentration, the perforation through the oxide film rarely took place due to the insufficient driving force (voltage) and the copper oxidation ceased. However, with the voltage higher than 3 V, the copper ions were started to diffuse out through the oxide film and thus made pores to be formed on the oxide surface, causing the current to increase and a part of the exposed copper film inside the pores gets back to be oxidized and the rest of it was remained without any further oxidation, causing the current back to decrease a little bit. With increasing the applied DC bias value, the shorter time to be taken for copper ions to be diffused out through the copper oxide film. From the discussions above, it could be concluded that the oxide film was formed and grown by the copper ion diffusion first and then the reaction with any oxidant in the post-CMP cleaning solution.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.3991-3995
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• 2011

$TiO_2-SiO_2-In_2O_3$ nanocomposite thin film was deposited on the glass substrates using a dip coating technique. The morphology, surface composition, surface hydroxyl groups, photocatalytic activity and hydrophilic properties of the thin film were investigated by AFM, XPS, methyl orange decoloring rate and water contact angle measurements. The hydroxyl content for $TiO_2$, $TiO_2-SiO_2$ and $TiO_2-SiO_2-In_2O_3$ nanocomposite films was calculated to be 11.6, 17.1 and 20.7%, respectively. $TiO_2-SiO_2-In_2O_3$ film turned superhydrophilic after 180-min irradiation with respect to pure $TiO_2$ and $TiO_2-SiO_2$ thin films. The photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange for $TiO_2$, $TiO_2-SiO_2$ and $TiO_2-SiO_2-In_2O_3$ thin films was measured as 38.19, 58.71 and 68.02%, respectively. The results indicated that $SiO_2$ and $In_2O_3$ had a significant effect on the hydrophilic, photocatalytic and self-cleaning properties of $TiO_2$ thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.504-509
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• 1999

In-situ cleaning and subsequent silicon epitaxial film growth were performed in a load-locked reactor equipped with Hg-grid UV lamp and PBN heater to obtain the smooth and contaminant-free underlying surface and develop low-temperature epitaxial film growth process. The removals of organic and native oxide were investigated using UV-excited $O_2$ and $NF_{3}/H_{2}$, and the effect of the surface condition was examined on the quality of silicon epitaxial film grown at temperature as low as $750^{\circ}C$. UV-excited gas phase cleaning was found to be effective in removing the organic and native oxide successfully providing a smooth surface with RMS roughness of 0.5$\AA$ at optimal condition. Crystalline quality of epitaxial film was determined by smoothness of cleaned surface and the presence of native oxide and impurity. Crystalline defects such as dislocation loops or voids due to the surface roughness were observed by XTEM.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.985-993
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• 2006

An experiment to find out the removal mechanism of PEG(polyethyleneglycol) by using UV-enhanced $O_2$ GPC (gas phase cleaning) at low substrate temperature below $200^{\circ}C$ was executed under various process conditions, such as substrate temperature, UV exposure, and $O_2$ gas. The possibility of using $UV/O_2$ GPC as a low-temperature in-situ cleaning tool for organic removal was confirmed by the removal of a PEG film with a thickness of about 200 nm within 150 sec at a substrate temperature of $200^{\circ}C$. Synergistic effects by combining photo-dissociation and photo oxidation can only remove the entire PEG film without residues within experimental splits. In $UV/O_2$ GPC with substrate temperatures higher than the glass transition temperature, the substantial increase in the PEG removal rate can be explained by surface-wave formation. The photo-dissociation of PEG film by UV exposure results in the formation of end aldehyde by dissociation of back-bone chain and direct decomposition of light molecules. The role of oxygen is forming peroxide radicals and/or terminating the dis-proportionation reaction by forming peroxide.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 1998

The composite SiO$_2$/Si$_3$N$_4$/SiO$_2$(ONO) film formed by oxidation on nitride film has been widely studied as DRAM stacked capacitor multi-dielectric films. Load lock(L/L) LPCVD system by HF cleaning is used to improve electrical capacitance and to scale down of effective thickness for memory device, but is brings a new problem. Nitride film deposited using HF cleaning shows selective deposition on poly silicon and oxide regions of capacitor. This problem is avoidable by carpeting chemical oxide using $H_2O$$_2$cleaning before nitride deposition. In this paper, we study the limit of nitride thickness for abnormal oxidation and the initial deposition time for nitride deposition dependent on underlayer materials. We proposed an advanced fabrication process for stacked capacitor in order to avoid selective deposition problem and show the usefulness of nitride deposition using L/L LPCVD system by $H_2O$$_2$cleaning. The natural oxide thickness on polysilicon monitor after HF and $H_2O$$_2$cleaning are measured 3~4$\AA$, respectively. Two substrate materials have the different initial nitride deposition times. The initial deposition time for polysilicon is nearly zero, but initial deposition time for oxide is about 60seconds. However the deposition rate is constant after initial deposition time. The limit of nitride thickness for abnormal oxidation under the HF and $H_2O$$_2$cleaning method are 60$\AA$, 48$\AA$, respectively. The results obtained in this study are useful for developing ultra thin nitride fabrication of ONO scaling and for avoiding abnormal oxidation in stacked capacitor application.