Abstract: A conditioning tool including a rotary conditioning pad; a lower shaft attached to the conditioning pad; an upper shaft having an upper end and a lower end, the lower end attached to the lower shaft via a flexible coupling; and a motor attached to the upper end of the upper shaft and adapted to rotate the shaft. The tool further includes a mechanism for measuring an angle of the conditioning pad relative to a reference plane. The conditioning tool may further include a conditioning arm, various control mechanisms, and a controller for receiving feedback from the angle measuring mechanism and the various control mechanisms and for controlling the various control mechanisms in response to the feedback. A chemical-mechanical polishing apparatus and a conditioning method for providing a uniform polishing surface of a chemical-mechanical polishing pad are also disclosed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for cleaning polishing debris from the surface of a polishing pad by wetting the surface with a liquid and irradiating the wetted surface with a beam of light. The light beam has sufficient intensity at the polishing surface of the pad to vaporize at least a portion of the liquid such that the vaporized liquid causes at least a portion of the debris to be expelled from the polishing surface of the pad.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for treating the surface of a substrate includes generating ozone in a generation chamber by using an optical source and transporting the ozone to a treatment chamber containing the substrate. The surface treatment utilizes an optical energy source and the generated ozone. The generation chamber and the treatment chamber are initially isolated from one another, which allows for the selective regulation of delivering ozone from the generation chamber to the treatment chamber. Preferably, a single optical source both generates ozone in the generation chamber and serves to clean and/or planarize the surface in the treatment chamber.