ABSTRACT
The critical dimensions in data storage and integrated circuit technologies continue to get smaller and smaller, putting these high-tech products at risk from submicrometer particles. As flying heights approach 25 nm, contamination of disk media and read-write heads during their manufacture becomes even more of a concern. A half-micrometer (500 nm) particle is more than ten times the readwrite gap, perhaps leading to a read-write error or a crash. Similarly, integrated circuits continue to have ever-decreasing "line width" ground rules, requiring the control of particles of ever decreasing size limits. Particles hundredths of a micrometer in size can be "killers" [1].
