Electrostatic particle removal and characterization

An electrostatic decontamination method and decontamination device (10) is disclosed for decontaminating the surface of a semiconductor substrate. The decontamination device (10) includes particle ionizing device (24) that charges contaminating particles (26) on the surface of semiconductor substrate (16) thereby creating ionized particles. Decontamination device (10) also includes substrate biasing device (12) for creating a charge accumulation layer (14) at the top of semiconductor substrate (16) so that the charge accumulation layer (14) has the same charge sign as the ionized particles. In addition, the invention analytically characterizes particles using contaminating particle isolator (44) which contains a particle ionizing device (24) that charges contaminating particles (26) on the surface of semiconductor substrate (16) thereby creating ionized particles. Contaminating particle isolator (44) includes substrate biasing device (12) operable to create charge accumulation layer (14) at the top of semiconductor substrate (16) so that the charge accumulation layer (14) has the same charge sign as the ionized particles. Contaminating particle isolator (44) also includes particle collector (46) that collects the ionized particles. This permits characterizing the particles to determine their chemical composition.