Local laser supported cleaning of microelectromechanical systems and components

The requirements for cleaning technology, e.g. local restrictability, ecological benefit and cleaning of even sub-µm particles, are risen up enormously in the last few years at the production of microelectromechanical systems and components. Most cleaning technologies are not able to meet all requirements, particulary local restrictability. Therefore a new cleaning technology, the Laser cleaning, has been introduced. Laser cleaning offers the possibility of local restrictability, high selectivity of the cleaning effect, application without chemicals and therefore high ecological benefit. It can be used for contaminations in form of films and particles. Moreover Laser cleaning is applicable to a wide range of materials and three-dimensional structures. Beside other cleaning technolgies particularly Laser cleaning, carried out with Excimer and Nd-YAG Lasers, is employed at the Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart. First results of Laser cleaning relating to different objects, contaminations and m aterials will be presented in this article.