• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.102-109
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• 2000

It is difficult to meet the cleanliness requirement of $10^{10}/\textrm{cm}^2$ for the giga level device fabrication with mechanical cleaning techniques like scrubbing which is widely used to remove the particles generated during Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) processes. Therefore, the second cleaning process is needed to remove metallic contaminants which were not completely removed during the mechanical cleaning process. In this paper the experimental results for the removal of the metallic contaminants existing on the wafer surface using remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning and UV/$O_3$ cleaning techniques are reported. In the remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning the efficiency of contaminants removal increases with decreasing the plasma exposure time and increasing the rf-power. Also the optimum process conditions for the removal of K, Fe and Cu impurities which are easily found on the wafer surface after CMP processes are the plasma exposure time of 1min and the rf-power of 100 W. The surface roughness decreased by 30-50 % after remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning. On the other hand, the highest efficiency of K, Fe and Cu impurities removal was achieved for the UV exposure time of 30 sec. The removal mechanism of the metallic contaminants like K, Fe and Cu in the remote plasma $H_2$ and the UV/$O_3$ cleaning processes is as follows: the metal atoms are lifted off by $SiO^*$ when the $SiO^*$is evaporated after the chemical $SiO_2$ formed under the metal atoms reacts with $H^+ \; and\; e^-$ to form $SiO^*$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.77-87
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• 2018

In this study, the effects of operating conditions on the formation of reversible and irreversible fouling were investigated in the filtration using ceramic membrane for water treatment process. The effect of coagulation pretreatment on fouling formation was also evaluated by comparing the performance of membrane filtration both with and without addition of coagulant. A resistance-in-series-model was applied for the analysis of membrane fouling. Total resistance (RT) and internal fouling resistance (Rf) increased in the membrane filtration process without coagulation as membrane flux and feed water concentrations increased. Internal fouling resistance, which was not recovered by physical cleaning, was more than 70% of the total resistance at the range of the membrane flux more than $5m^3/m^2{\cdot}day$. In the combined process with coagulation, the cake layer resistance (Rc) increased to about 30-80% of total resistance. As the cake layer formed by coagulation floc was easily removed by physical cleaning, the recovery rate by physical cleaning was 54~90%. It was confirmed from the results that the combined process was more efficient to recover the filtration performance by physical cleaning due to higher formation ratio of reversible fouling, resulted in the mitigation of the frequency of chemical cleaning.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.111-117
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• 2008

We have studied surface roughness, contamination of impurity, bonding with some gas element, reflectance and zeta potential on masks to be generated or changed during photolithography/dry or wet etching process. Mask surface roughness was not changed after photolithography/dry etching process. But surface roughness was changed on some area under MoSi film of Cr/MoSi/Qz. There was not detected any impurity on mask surface after plasma dry etching process. Reflectance of mask was increased after variable plasma etching treatment, especially when mask was treated with plasma including $O_2$ gas. Blank mask was positively charged when the mask was treated with Cr plasma etching gas($Cl_2:250$ sccm/He:20 $sccm/O_2:29$ seem, source power:100 W/bias power:20 W, 300 sec). But this positive charge was changed to negative charge when the mask was treated with $CF_4$ gas for MoSi plasma etching, resulting better wet cleaning. There was appeared with negative charge on MoSi/Qz mask treated with Cr plasma etching process condition, and this mask was measured with more negative after SC-1 wet cleaning process, resulting better wet cleaning. This mask was charged with positive after treatment with $O_2$ plasma again, resulting bad wet cleaning condition.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.401-406
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• 2016

In this study, we have investigated the removal of the low level radioactive ions of Cs and I in water by the reverse osmosis (RO) process. The two RO modules produced in domestic region and the waste RO module after the cleaning process were selected. Then we compared removal performance of both Cs and I. The experiments are conducted by varying the concentration of feed, the pressure. As a results, it was confirmed that all three modules are higher I decontamination factor than Cs. And particularly, for the cleaned RO module, its decontamination factor of I was 1140. Since the results at low pressure condition were better than that at high pressure conditions, the use of the direct installation of RO modules on the tap water might be possible. In addition, it was confirmed that the waste RO module after cleaning process using EDTA, SBS and NaOH, increased the decontamination performance better than before cleaning, in particular, the recovery ratio after cleaning was 6.3% higher.

• Clean Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.264-271
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• 2013

In this study, we optimized the removal condition of contaminants attached on the scrap surface to recycle the scrap generated from the Zr alloy tube manufacturing process back to the nuclear grade. The main contaminant is remnant of watersoluble cooling lubricant that is used in the pilgering manufacture during the tube production, and it is assumed to be compressed and carbonized on the surface of tube. Zirlo alloy tube of ${\phi}9.50mm$, which has high occurrence frequency of scrap, was selected as the object to be cleaned, and cleaning abilities of reagents were evaluated by measuring the characteristics of contaminants remained and by analyzing the surface of the tube after cleaning process. For evaluation of each cleaning agent, we selected two types of sodium hydroxide series and three types of potassium hydroxide series. Furthermore, to confirm dependence on tempe-rature and ultrasonic intensities, cleaning at the room temperature, $40^{\circ}C$, and $60^{\circ}C$ was conducted, and results showed that higher the cleaning temperature and higher the ultrasonic intensity, better the cleaning effect. As a result of the bare-eye inspection, while the use of sodium hydroxide provided satisfactory condition on the tube surface, the use of potassium hydroxide series provided satisfactory condition on the tube surface only when the ultrasonic intensity was over 120 W. In the cleaning effect analysis using the gravimetric method, cleaning efficiency of sodium hydroxide series was as high as 97.6% ($60^{\circ}C$, 120 W), but since the tube surface condition was poor after the use of potassium hydroxide, the gravimetric method was not appropriate. In the analytical result of surface contaminants on the tube surface, C, O, Ca, and Zr were detected, and mainly C and O dominated the proportion of contaminants. It was also found that the degree of cleaning on the tube affected the componential ratio of C and O; if the degree of cleaning is high, or if cleaning is well-conducted, the proportion of C is decreased, and the proportion of O is increased. Based on these results, optimal cleaning for application in the industry can be expected by categorizing cleaning process into three steps of Alkali cleaning, Rinsing, and Drying and by adjusting cleaning parameters in each step.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.462-467
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• 2015

Pellicle is defined as a thin transparent film stretched over an aluminum (Al) frame that is glued on one side of a photomask. As semiconductor devices are pursuing higher levels of integration and higher resolution patterns, the cleaning of the Al flame surface is becoming a critical step because the contaminants on the Al flame can cause lithography exposure defects on the wafers. In order to remove these contaminants from the Al frame, a highly concentrated nitric acid ($HNO_3$) solution is used. However, it is difficult to fully remove them, which results in an increase in the Al surface roughness. In this paper, the pellicle frame cleaning is investigated using various cleaning solutions. When the mixture of sulfuric acid ($H_2SO_4$), hydrofluoric acid (HF), hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$), and deionized water with ultrasonic is used, a high cleaning efficiency is achieved without $HNO_3$. Thus, this cleaning process is suitable for Al frame cleaning and it can also reduce the use of chemicals.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.4 no.8
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• pp.921-926
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• 1994

The characteristics of gate oxide significantly depend on the last chemical solution used in cleaning process. The standard RCA, HF-last, SC1-last, and HF-only processes are the pre-gate oxide cleaning processes utilized in this experiment. Cleaning process was followed by thermal oxidation in oxidation furnace at $900^{\circ}C$. A 100$\AA$ gate oxide was grown and characterized with using lifetime detector, VPD AAS, SIMS, TEM, and AFM. The results of HF-last and HF-only were shown to be very effective to remove the metallic impurities. And these two splits also showed long minority carrier lifetimes. The surface and interface morphologies of the oxide were examined with AFM and TEM. The rough surface morphologies were observed with the cleaning splits containing the SC1 solution. The smooth surface and interface was observed with the HF-only cleaning process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.229-236
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• 2017

In this study, a direct contact membrane module was manufactured to be used in a pilot scale membrane distillation process to treat $3m^3/day$ of the digestate produced from anaerobic digestion of livestock manure. In order to investigate the performance of the membrane module, permeate flux was measured with and without spacer inside the module under various condition of temperature difference and cross flow velocity (CFV) through the membrane surfaces. Flux recovery rate after chemical cleaning was also investigated by applying three different cleaning methods. Additionally, thermal energy consumption was theoretically simulated based on actual pilot plant operation conditions. As results, we observed flux of the module with spacer was almost similar to the theoretically predicted value because the installation of spacer reduced the channeling effect inside the module. Under the same operating condition, the permeate flux also increased with increasing temperature difference and CFV. As a result of chemical in-line cleaning using NaOCl and citric acid for the fouled membranes, the recovery rate was 83.7% compared to the initial flux when NaOCl was used alone, and 87% recovery rate was observed when only citric acid was used. However, in the case of using only citric acid, the permeate flux was decreased at a rapid rate. It seemed that a cleaning by NaOCl was more effective to recover the flux of membrane contaminated by the organic matter as compared to a cleaning by citric acid. The total heat energy consumption increased with increasing CFV and temperature difference across the membrane. Thus, further studies should be intensively conducted to obtain a high permeate flux while keeping the energy consumption to a minimum for a practical application of membrane distillation process to treat wastewater.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.440-444
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• 2018

An effective cleaning method for Ni removal in Ni-induced lateral crystallization(Ni-MILC) poly-Si TFTs and their electrical properties are investigated. The HCN cleaning method is effective for removal of Ni on the crystallized Si surface, while the nitric acid treatment results decrease by almost two orders of magnitude in the Ni concentration due to effective removal of diffused Ni mainly in the poly-Si grain boundary regions. Using the HCN cleaning method after the nitric acid treatment, re-adsorbed Ni on the Si surfaces is effectively removed by the formation of Ni-cyanide complexions. After the cleaning process, important electrical properties are improved, e.g., the leakage current density from $9.43{\times}10^{-12}$ to $3.43{\times}10^{-12}$ A and the subthreshold swing values from 1.37 to 0.67 mV/dec.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.269-274
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• 2004

As next generation display, TFT LCD gets into the spotlight, and the bigger glass size is required. Currently, its display size is 1500 mm by 1870 mm at the six generation comparing with 300mm by 400 mm at the first one and the size is increasing continuously, which cause the difficulties to apply the cleaning operation including the general brush cleaning. In this study, water-jet cleaning operation has been introduced, which spent the less water them other cleaning methods. Throughout the experiment, is has been found the possible damage of the declined cell and the variation of the tilt bias angle depending upon the increasing time. In addition, the simulation predicts the glass bending of the display.