Organic contamination has an impact on semiconductor product yield. Therefore, the removal of typical organic contamination, originating from clean room air, wafer boxes, and wafer handling, is required. The cleaning efficiency of ozone-based cleaning processes is evaluated. Different cleans are effective in removing monolayers of typical clean room contaminants on silicon wafers. The organic target molecules under study represent some of the typical clean room contaminants encountered in silicon technology, i.e., dioctyl phthalate, stearic acid, butylated hydroxy toluene, some siloxanes ͑octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane and decamethyltetrasiloxane͒, a surfactant ͑4-dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid͒, and n-pentadecane. A prerequisite for measuring the removal efficiency of ozonated cleans for submonolayer organic contamination has been the development of a controlled, reproducible, and quantitative deposition method for those species. Exposure to a sealed ambient of organic compounds and wet chemical exposure were assessed. It is found that deposition ͑contamination͒ of rather volatile compounds via a sealed gas-phase ambient ͑e.g., wafer box͒ is less likely and thus less effective for a controlled contamination. However, via wet chemical exposure, organic compounds could be deposited onto silicon wafers in a reproducible and quantitative way. Furthermore, multiple internal reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy were effectively applied to characterize organic material intentionally deposited onto silicon surfaces.The presence of organic contamination on silicon substrate surfaces has a detrimental impact on the performance and yield of semiconductor products and is therefore becoming an increasingly serious problem. 1,2 Ozone-cleaning recipes have been proven successful in removing selected organic contaminants ͑photoresist and trimethyl siloxane groups on silicon wafers͒. 3,4 In contrast, it was observed that certain organic antireflective coatings ͑ARCs͒ are not completely decomposed by ozone. Even with a longer process time, the ARC delaminates 5 rather than being converted to CO 2 and H 2 O. It can thus be concluded that the removal efficiency of ozone-based cleanings strongly varies depending on the type of organic species. The purpose of this study is to determine the removal efficiency of ozonated cleans for different organic compounds. Wafer contaminants like dioctyl phthalate ͑DOP͒, butylated hydroxytoluene ͑BHT͒, stearic acid, 4-dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid ͑i.e., surfactant͒, n-pentadecane, and siloxanes ͑cyclic or linear͒ are of major concern. These species are present in the clean room ambient from packaging materials, wafer boxes, processing tools and materials, sealing material, etc. 6 These organic contaminants are either physisorbed or chemisorbed depending on their chemical nature. 7 In general, the adsorption properties of monolayer organic compounds on solid surfaces are governed by their vapor pressures and molecular weights. The molecular...