Recent advances in UV and VUV cleaning of optical materials

An overview is given of recent achievements of the Materials Processing Branch of the Short Wavelengths and Interactions with Materials (SWIM) program at Macquarie University. This research focuses on using short-pulsed UV lasers and other novel VUV sources to clean small particles (including sub-micron particles) and hydrocarbons from optical, optoelectronic and photonic materials.