Methods and apparatus for aluminum oxide surface recovery

A method of cleaning a surface of a substrate, comprising:

• applying an alcohol treatment on a surface of the substrate, the alcohol treatment configured to provide surface reduction;
• and
• applying a water treatment to the surface of the substrate for a duration of approximately 5 seconds to approximately 120 seconds and at a pressure of greater than zero Tor to approximately 1 Torr after applying the alcohol treatment, wherein the water treatment includes exposing the surface of the substrate to hydrogen radicals or oxygen radicals generated by injecting a water treatment mixture into plasma, and wherein the water treatment is configured to enhance selectivity of at least a portion of the surface of the substrate for a subsequent barrier layer process by removing alcohol from the portion of the surface to reduce an alcohol induced nucleation delay on the surface.

A non-transitory, computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a method for cleaning a surface of a substrate to be performed, the method comprising:

• applying an alcohol treatment on a surface of the substrate, the alcohol treatment configured to provide surface reduction;
• applying a water treatment to the surface of the substrate after applying the alcohol treatment, the water treatment configured to enhance selectivity of at least a portion of the surface of the substrate for a subsequent barrier layer process by removing alcohol from the at least a portion of the surface to reduce an alcohol induced nucleation delay on the surface and wherein the water treatment includes exposing the surface of the substrate to radicals from a plasma produced with water.