Effects of cleaning procedures of silica wafers on their friction characteristics

Bogdan C. Donose, Elena Taran, Ivan U. Vakarelski, Hiroyuki Shinto, Ko Higashitani*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

57 Scopus citations

Abstract

Silicon wafers with thermal silicon oxide layers were cleaned and hydrophilized by three different methods: (1) the remote chemical analysis (RCA) wet cleaning by use of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide mixture solutions, (2) water-vapor plasma cleaning, and (3) UV/ozone combined cleaning. All procedures were found to remove effectively organic contaminations on wafers and gave identical characteristics of the contact angle, the surface roughness and the normal force interactions, measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). However, it is found that wafers cleaned by the RCA method have several times larger friction coefficients than those cleaned by the plasma and UV/ozone methods. The difference was explained by the atomic-scale topological difference induced during the RCA cleaning. This study reveals the lateral force microscopy as a very sensitive method to detect the microstructure of surfaces.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)233-237
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of colloid and interface science
Volume299
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2006
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • AFM
  • Friction
  • Hydrophilic surface
  • Silica
  • Surface cleaning

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Surfaces, Coatings and Films
  • Biomaterials
  • Colloid and Surface Chemistry

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