Adhesion and removal of glass, silica and PSL particles from silicon dioxide substrates

As circuit minimum feature size continues to shrink, surface cleanliness requirements become more stringent, making surface cleaning more challenging. To develop effective cleaning techniques, it is important to understand particle adhesion and removal mechanisms. Although many studies have been conducted in particle adhesion, the effects of humidity and aging, hydrogen and covalent bonds, and particle's submicron size on adhesion are not well understood. It is necessary to study and understand how the adhesion force changes with time under different conditions in order to develop effective cleaning techniques. The humidity and aging effects on the adhesion and removal of glass particles on flat panel display glass surface, silica particles on thermal oxide silicon wafers and PSL (Polystyrene Latex) particles on silicon wafers are investigated.; The results show that silica particles' contact area increases dramatically in high humidity environment over time. This is due to the water reacting with the silica and forming a covalent bond. The results show that silica particles' adhesion force is found to depend on the aging time. After six weeks 95%RH aging, the adhesion force is larger than MP model (for plastic deformation) predicted adhesion force. This is due to the formation of hydrogen bonds and covalent bonds. Removal of glass particles on Flat Panel Display aged in a humid environment using megasonic cleaning is also investigated. The effect of temperature, cleaning time and megasonic power on particle removal is shown. The time and humidity effect on submicron PSL particles' adhesion is also investigated. The combined effect of time and humidity results in increased particle deformation and consequently the increased adhesion force. An empirical model is proposed to describe the relationship between the contact diameter, particle diameter and aging time. The proposed model is in good agreement with the experimental data. The results suggest that a greater plastic deformation of PSL particles occurs than that described by current models. It is shown that the plastic response results from the fact that the adhesion force is large enough to exceed the yield strength of PSL particles.