I am interested in obtaining extremely clean Si surfaces and want to
prevent native oxide growth after HF etching.  My thought was to rinse the
Si wafer in some solution or other, then place it immediately in a dry
nitrogen atmosphere.  Does anyone have a suggestion on a good rinsing
solution?  I thought water would probably be a bad idea.  How long will it
take for (fairly dry) air to form the native oxide?  Ideally I would like
to have no oxide at all on the surface.

Thanks in advance,

Dave Kielpinski
National Institute of Standards and Technology