Laser induced removal of spherical particles from silicon wafers

Abstract

Laser-induced removal of spherical silica particles from silicon wafers was investigated. The cleaning efficiency and laser cleaning thresholds for particles with diameters of 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, and 5.0 μm were carefully measured. It is found that the cleaning efficiency is more sensitive to laser fluence than laser pulse number and repetition frequency. The particle ejecting energies were found to increase with laser fluence. The threshold laser fluences for removing particles with sizes of 0.5 and 1.0 μm are 225 and 100 mJ/cm2, respectively, when KrF excimer laser is used. The threshold laser fluences are only a value below 5.0 mJ/cm2 for particles with a size of 2.5 and 5 μm. A model including both linear expansion and elastic deformation model was proposed to explain the experimental results. With this model, the particle movement and deformation in laser cleaning process were calculated. The expressions for threshold laser fluences were derived. The theoretical predictions are found to be greater than the experimental results. The difference can be explained by the enhancement of light intensity near the contacting area, due to the focusing and scattering by spherical particles. This model is useful to the study of laser cleaning as well as particle adhesion and deformation on solid surfaces.