Surface energy and wetting behaviour of plasma etched porous SiCOH surfaces and plasma etch residue cleaning solutions

The removal of plasma etch residues by wet cleaning is an alternative or additional process to plasma processes, which are known to degrade low-k and ultralow-k dielectric materials. Besides Cu/low-k compatibility wetting is an important issue for wet cleaning. Surface energy of solid and liquid is the key to understand the wetting behaviour. In this study we examined the energetic character of plasma etched/stripped solid surfaces, etch polymers and several cleaning solutions by contact angle measurements. The results show, that variations of the etching process can heavily change the energetic character of the solid. Calculating the surface energies of solid and liquid provides the possibility to make a prediction if a cleaning liquid will wet the surface which has to be cleaned.