Native oxide removal on Si surface by NF 3 -added hydrogen plasma downstream treatment

NF₃ was injected into the downstream of H₂ + H₂O plasma to produce etchant for SiO₂ without dissociating NF₃ in order to minimize residual fluorine, and native oxide on Si(111) surfaces was removed by the downstream treatment. ATR FT-IR measurement showed that native oxide on the Si surface was removed and a hydrogen terminated surface was obtained. AES measurement revealed that residual fluorine was below detection limits.