Eliminating carbon contamination on oxidized Si surfaces using a VUV excimer lamp

Thin Solid Films

Volumn 517, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 1011-1015

 

^a Liz)   (United States)

Author keywords

Adventitious carbon; Cleaning; EUV reflectance standard

Indexed keywords

CALIBRATION; MIRRORS; OXYGEN; PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY; PHOTONS; REFLECTION; SEMICONDUCTING SILICON COMPOUNDS; SILICON; SILICON WAFERS; SPECTROSCOPIC ELLIPSOMETRY; STANDARDS; X RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY; XENON;

ADVENTITIOUS CARBON; CALIBRATION STANDARDS; CARBON CONTAMINATIONS; EUV REFLECTANCE STANDARD; EXCIMER LAMPS; NATIVE OXIDES; ORGANIC CONTAMINATIONS; OXIDIZED SILICON WAFERS; OXYGEN RADICALS; PAPER ADDRESSES; RF PLASMAS; SI SURFACES; VUV EXCIMER LAMPS; VUV SPECTRUMS; X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPIES;

CONTAMINATION;

EID: 56649112927     PISSN: 00406090     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.tsf.2008.06.046     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. Researchers refer to the mostly carbon-containing contamination layer which settles on surfaces as an environmental, organic, molecular, hydrocarbon, carbon or adventitious layer. (We use the word "carbon" as a stand-in for organic films or unknown composition since carbon is the species in the contamination layer detected by XPS and can be the dominant EUV absorber.) Adventitious means, extrinsic, associated with something by chance rather than as an integral part.
2. Barr T., and Seal S. J. Vac. Sci. Technol., A 13 3 (1995)
3. Kern W. J. Electrochem. Soc. 137 (1990) 1887
4. Data from B. L. Henke, E.M. Gullikson, and J. C. Davis, Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables, 54, 2, (1993) was used in the bilayer program of E. Gullikson, http://henke.lbl.gov/optical_constants/ Accessed 27 Feb 2008.
5. Tveekrem J. NASA Technical Report TP-1999-209264 (1999)
6. Nicole Brimhall, Matthew Turner, Nicholas Herrick, David D. Allred, R. Steven Turley, Michael Ware, and Justin Peatross, Rev. Sci. Instruments. In review.
7. Although somewhat unusual, use of the Evactron on an XPS system is not unprecedented. In 2001 two posters were presented at the Microscopy and Microanalysis conference where the Evactron was used with XPS systems.
8. 2:HCl. See for example. W. Kern, J. Electrochem. Soc., 137, (1990) 1887-1892.
9. The excimer lamp creates ozone and oxygen radicals by exposing oxygen to 172 nm photons. These products oxidize the adventitious carbon on the samples thus freeing the sample of its organic contamination. Excimer lamp cleaning is thought to rely on atomic oxygen rather than ozone; this is in contrast with earlier low-pressure mercury discharge lamps (photon at 6.6 eV, 187 nm).