Patent ID: 7807219

Claim:
A process of repairing a plasma etched low-k dielectric material having surface-bound silanol groups, comprising: (a) exposing at least one surface of the dielectric material to a catalyst so as to form hydrogen bonds between the catalyst and the surface-bound silanol groups thereby obtaining a catalytic intermediary; (b) treating the dielectric material with a silane capping agent such that the silane capping agent reacts with the catalytic intermediary and forms surface-bound silane compounds having at least one alkoxy group; and (c) reacting the at least one alkoxy group on the surface-bound silane compounds of (b) with water to form a silanol group, wherein a hydrogen bond is formed between a catalyst and the silanol group to obtain a catalytic intermediary, and wherein the catalytic intermediary reacts with an adjacent alkoxy group on the surface-bound silane compounds of (b) forming a horizontal network between adjacent surface-bound silane compounds, wherein the catalyst in (a) is present in a supercritical solvent.