title: FTIR-ATR evaluation of organic contaminant cleaning methods for SiO2 surfaces.
abstract: The effectiveness of cleaning organic contaminants from silicon dioxide (SiO2) surfaces was studied by conducting highly sensitive measurements using Fourier Transform Infrared Attenuated Total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) with a Si prism as the waveguide. To serve as an example, the surface of the prism was oxidized to an order of a few nanometers. The oxidized Si surface film was allowed to stand in the atmosphere and then wet-cleaned in a repeated manner; subsequently its thickness was measured by ellipsometry. Although, various wet-cleaning methods were tested, they only showed values of 0.1-0.2 nm larger than, but not equal to, the original thickness immediately after oxidation. FTIR-ATR measurements of the spectral change after exposure to air revealed that organic species, such as C-CH3 and -(CH2)n-, increased with time. Wet-cleaning the sample failed to remove the C-CH3 species, which indicates that they corresponded to the film thickness increment from the original.
authors.affiliation: Department of Precision Science and Technology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1, Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Akihito
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shinozaki
authors.forename: Kenta
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Arima
authors.forename: Mizuho
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Isao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: Yasushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Azuma