Patent ID: 8551252

Claim:
A method for removing a plurality of residual slurry particles from a substrate, the method comprising: receiving the substrate, the substrate having the plurality of residual slurry particles remaining on a surface of the substrate after a chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process; determining whether surface characteristics of the substrate are substantially different than surface characteristics of the residual slurry particles; if the surface characteristics of the substrate are substantially different than surface characteristics of the residual slurry particles, then the method includes, selectively attaching to a surface of the plurality of residual slurry particles a functionalizing molecule, wherein the functionalizing molecule imparts at least one changed chemical characteristic to the plurality of residual slurry particles relative to the surface of the substrate, and wherein the at least one changed chemical characteristic facilitates removal of the plurality of residual slurry particles from the substrate; if the surface characteristics of the substrate are not substantially different than the surface characteristics of the residual slurry particles, then the method includes, attaching a normalizing molecular layer (NML) to both the surface of the substrate and the residual slurry particles; and cleaning the substrate after one of the selectively attaching the functionalizing molecule or the attaching the NML with an aqueous cleaning solution.