Methods and apparatus for precleaning and treating wafer surfaces

A method for processing a substrate, comprising:

• removing residue or oxides from a surface of the substrate in a process chamber with hydrogen radicals produced from a remote plasma source (RPS) in combination with a first chemical, wherein the hydrogen radicals from the RPS flow into a processing volume of the process chamber via a top of the process chamber;
• and
• without an air break and within the process chamber, forming a blocking layer or a gas phase surfactant with a second chemical on at least a portion of the surface of the substrate to protect at least one bottom portion of structure on the substrate during a subsequent reverse selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, wherein the second chemical flows directly into the processing volume of the process chamber via a sidewall of the process chamber.

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

• removing residue or oxides from a surface of the substrate in a process chamber with radicals produced from a remote plasma source (RPS);
• and
• without an air break and within the process chamber, forming a blocking layer or a gas phase surfactant with a first chemical on at least a portion of the surface of the substrate to protect at least one bottom portion of structure on the substrate during a subsequent reverse selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process.