Process for surface treatment with ions

Abstract

The invention relates to a process for cleaning and smoothing the surface of materials with a monocrystalline, polycrystalline or amorphous structure comprising the steps of: (a) polishing the surface to the lowest mechanically attainable roughness; (c) bombarding the surface with ions of a defined charge and kinetic energy to remove any impurities on the surface. To improve efficiency and especially to reduce the cleaning cycles it is proposed to bombard the surface with at least double-charged ions of low kinetic energy, where the potential energy of the ions causes an interaction with the bonded impurities in accordance with their high charge which removes said impurities. Furthermore the kinetic energy imparted to the ions is determined solely so that the ions can approach the atoms of the surface impurities as closely as possible without, however, penetrating the surface.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.