Dear Colleague,

We've used BCl3 on one of our RIE machines for some months. Just recently we
needed to disassemble the vacuum pump (rotary pump) and discovered that the
exhaust port is clogged with some powderish stuff that I assume is boronoxide of
some form. I think I've heard that BCl3 will react with oxygen in the air to
create some oxide, and now I wonder how to prevent this happening in the future.

Currently, the exhaust is going through pipe work and a fan to the top of the
roof. (pollution? Yes, but the amount is very limited as this is R&D). Is there
any other ways of taking care of this than buying an expensive scrubber? When
this reaction happens so fast that I can't even get the gas out of the pump
before it reacts, how can I be sure that a scrubber unit will help?

Best regards,
Erik Poppe
_________________________________________________________________
Erik Poppe,
Ph.D. student at Dept. of Physical Electronics, Norwegian University of Science
and Technology
email: [email protected]
phone: (+47) 73 59 02 09
fax: (+47) 73 59 14 41
Address:
        Dept. of Physical Electronics
        O.S. Bragstadpl. 2
        N-7491 TRONDHEIM
        Norway
WWW:  http://www.fysel.ntnu.no/~erikp