A plasma is the fourth state of matter, which is created by heating a gas electrically. We use a very special type of generator to excite the gas electrically in the microwave frequency range. The most important benefit is that the gas remains close to room temperature and barely heats the product under treatment.

Plasma cleaning means that a product's surface (and its contaminants!) are exposed to a plasma environment, which allows the gas molecules to react efficiently and faster with the contaminants to form new gas molecules. These gaseous remnants of the reactions are then easily removed by the exhaust flow.

Advanced plasma cleaning refers to innovate processes that use a combination of different process steps. This is important for specific applications, where for example organic contaminants are efficiently removed using one type of gas, say oxygen, but that specific gas also leaves undesired contaminants by itself. In such cases, it is important to follow up the first process step by a second process using another gas, say hydrogen. This way multiple requirements to the surface's properties can be satisfied.