| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Vacuum Technology | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session VT-TuA |
| Session: | Accelerator and Ultra-Clean Vacuum Systems |
| Presenter: | H.G.C. Werij, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands |
| Authors: | H.G.C. Werij, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands N.B. Koster, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands J.C.J. van der Donck, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands A.J. Storm, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands R. Verberk, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands R. Versluis, TNO Technical Sciences, The Netherlands |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Cleanliness requirements in high-tech science and industry are getting more and more challenging. At the same time, the consequence of not properly adhering to these requirements could be devastating. Whereas the general way of working involves prevention, inspection/monitoring and cleaning, each particular application requires its own dedicated systems approach. For instance, is it particulate or molecular contamination we have to deal with? Do we really need an ultrahigh vacuum or should it be ultraclean with respect to certain contaminants? And what is the trade-off between ultraclean production and in-situ cleaning? Such questions have to be answered in order to find the solutions that are both adequate and cost-effective at the same time.
In the presentation several examples will be addressed, including delicate space instrumentation, (extreme ultraviolet) lithography tools and equipment for fusion energy (ITER). We will present how contamination should be dealt with in the design phase, which not only involves choice of materials, but also geometrical layout and handling. We will show that for certain applications the traditional approach of using ultra-high vacuum might not yield the optimum result. By introducing low-pressure ultraclean gases combined with differential pumping both molecular and particulate contaminants can be mitigated very efficiently, as is demonstrated in numerous experiments.
As far as inspection and monitoring is concerned, we will give a brief overview of several sensing technologies, currently being developed at TNO. These consist of ionization sensors and optical sensors, the latter being integrated nanophotonics sensors, which may be used to detect molecular contaminants. For particle detection down to 50 nm diameter an automated particle scanner has been developed, which will be touched upon as well.
In the field of cleaning, apart from more traditional methods like wet, CO2, and ultrasonic cleaning, we will address plasma cleaning technology developed in-house. We will show experimental results obtained using our shielded microwave induced remote plasma setup and hydrogen radicals.