Capillary drying of substrates

Abstract

An apparatus and method for drying substrates. The inventive apparatus comprises: an object support member for supporting at least one substrate in a process tank having one or more support sections comprising capillary material. The inventive method is a method of removing liquid from a wet substrate in a process tank comprising contacting the wet substrate with capillary material. In another aspect, the invention is a method of drying at least one substrate having a surface in a process tank comprising: submerging the substrate in a liquid having a liquid level; supporting the submerged substrates in the process tank; supplying a drying vapor above the liquid level; lowering the liquid level or raising the substrate so that the liquid level is below the substrate, thereby removing a major portion of liquid from the substrate surface; and removing remaining liquid from the substrate surface with capillary material.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.