Comparison of Cleanroom Samplers for Inorganic Airborne Molecular Contaminants

Abstract

The performances of inorganic airborne molecular contaminants (AMCs) via silica gel tubes, impingers, and diffusion denuder sampler (DDS) were compared in a cleanroom. The results showed silica gel tubes were not applicable for cleanroom sampling due to high blanks. While with optimal sampling conditions both impingers and DDS have much better performances, of which DDS has the lowest detection limits of the method for HF, HCl, HNO₂, HNO₃, SO₂, and NH₃ gases to be 0.15, 0.11, 0.13, 0.03, 0.07, and 0.42 µg/m³, respectively. Results indicated no significant difference for the HF and SO₄ ²⁻ concentrations made by the DDS and impingers.

Keywords:

• Airborne molecular contamination (AMC)
• cleanroom
• micro‐contamination
• semiconductor device
• diffusion denuder sampler (DDS)
• impinger air sampler