UVOTECH Systems, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of surface treatment equipment, announced the release of a new UV-Ozone Cleaning System, Model HELIOS-500. This is the first product in the HELIOS series of UV-Ozone Cleaners by UVOTECH.

The HELIOS-500 system is designed to be very compact, lightweight and economical. It includes an ultraviolet grid lamp for increased uniformity as well as a digital process timer which allows more accurate control over the process time. The drawer loading sample stage can accommodate up to 5”x5” substrates. Included pedestals allow for adjusting the distance between the UV source and substrate. This system also comes with a built-in hour-counter which will record the total hours of the UV lamp usage for maintenance purposes.

The UV Ozone Cleaning process is a photo-sensitized oxidation process in which the contaminant molecules of photo resists, resins, human skin oil, cleaning solvent residues, silicone oils, and flux are excited and/or dissociated by the absorption of short wavelength UV radiation. Atomic oxygen is simultaneously generated when molecular oxygen is dissociated by 185nm and ozone by 254nm ultraviolet wavelengths. The 254nm UV radiation is absorbed by most hydrocarbons and also by ozone. The products of this excitation of contaminant molecules react with atomic oxygen to form simpler, volatile molecules, which desorbs from the surface. Therefore, when both UV wavelengths are present atomic oxygen is continuously generated, and ozone is continually formed and destroyed.

Using a UV-Ozone Cleaner, near atomically clean surfaces can be achieved in minutes without any damage to your devices. This fast method of obtaining ultra-clean surfaces free of organic contaminants on most substrates, such as quartz, silicon, gold, nickel, aluminum, gallium arsenide, alumina, glass slides, etc. can easily be achieved by utilizing a UV-Ozone Cleaner in just a few minutes.