Evaluation of citric acid added cleaning solution for removal of metallic contaminants on Si wafer surface

We have investigated cleaning solutions based on citric acid (CA) to remove metallic contaminants from the silicon wafer surface. Silicon wafers were intentionally contaminated with Fe, Ca, Zn, Na, Al and Cu standard solution by spin coating method and cleaned in various CA-added cleaning solutions. The concentration of metallic contaminants on the silicon wafer surface before and after cleaning was analyzed by vapor phase decomposition/inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (VPD/ICP-MS). And the surface micro-roughness was also measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) to evaluate the effect of cleaning solutions. It was found that acidic CA/H₂O solution has the ability to remove metallic contaminants from silicon surfaces. Fe, Ca, Zn and Na on silicon surface were decreased from the order of 10¹² atoms/cm² to the order of 10⁹ atoms/cm² even at low CA concentration, low temperature of CA solution and with short immersion time. CA was also effective in alkali cleaning solution. Fe, Ca, Zn, Na and Cu were reduced down to the order of 10⁹ atoms/cm² in CA added with NH₄OH/H₂O₂/H₂O solution without degradation of surface micro-roughness.