Patent 7232759 was granted and assigned to Applied Materials on June, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Embodiments of the current invention describe ammonia hydroxide treatments for surfaces. In one embodiment, a method and a cleaning solution including ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH), water (H2O), a chelating agent, and a surfactant for cleaning silicon germanium substrates are described. The cleaning solution does not include hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) because hydrogen peroxide etches germanium. In another embodiment, a method of terminating oxidized surfaces on semiconductor substrates with terminating groups that promote the bonding of the oxidized surface to another surface with a surface treatment containing ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) is described. The oxidized surface is immediately bonded to a second substrate after evaporation of the surface treatment.