Plasma Cleaning

Plasma cleaning is mainly based on the large amount of active particles generated by plasma discharge. Under certain conditions, these active particles react with surface contaminants of the cleaned object, achieving the cleaning effect.

Plasma cleaning can be divided into two reaction processes. In the chemical reaction process, active particles combine with organic molecules, undergo scission, form new unstable groups, and finally decompose into volatile carbon dioxide and water. In the physical reaction process, active particles, under the action of electric fields, collide with the surface of the cleaned object at a certain velocity and energy, overcome the binding force between molecules and the surface, and cause surface contaminants to decompose or fall off, achieving the cleaning purpose.

The biggest feature of plasma cleaning is that it can handle all types of substrate materials without distinction. It can handle metal, semiconductor, oxide, organic and most polymer materials, only requiring very low gas flow rate. It can achieve both overall and local cleaning as well as cleaning of complex structures. In the plasma cleaning process, no chemical solvents are used, so it is basically pollution-free, which is beneficial for environmental protection. In addition, its production cost is low, and the cleaning has good uniformity, repeatability, controllability, and is easy to implement in batch production.

Examples of Plasma Cleaning

Removal of organic contaminants using O2 gas

The cleaning effect of plasma is mainly to remove ( typical-CH-based ) organic contaminants and oxides dominated by weak bonds.