Laser power supply fun

[trwalters001]

Hydrofluoric is SO nasty that it will eat GLASS! It has to be stored in paraffin, Teflon, etc. bottles...

[h2so4]

I think i had some of it...but it was too diluited to be interesting!!! guess 15%...However, I knew it was dangerous and never used it..H2SO4,HCl,HNO3 were enough for me!!!

[heroic]

I think i had some of it...but it was too diluited to be interesting!!! guess 15%

Even dilute HF is bad stuff to get on you. In addition to its almost fanatical corrosive properties, it also happens to be extremely toxic, destroying human tissues in what is said to be the most painful way possible.
Even if you manage to get it off you, it tends to lurk, causing bone necrosis.

Horrible, horrible stuff. Avoid.

Still, it's not even close to half the chemicals used in semiconductor production... I could tell you stories that wouldn't just turn your hair white- they'd make it burst into flames...

[Jem]

Even dilute HF is bad stuff to get on you. In addition to its almost fanatical corrosive properties, it also happens to be extremely toxic, destroying human tissues in what is said to be the most painful way possible.
Even if you manage to get it off you, it tends to lurk, causing bone necrosis.

Horrible, horrible stuff. Avoid.

OMG and to think that we used to dip lenses in and out of it. I think if i'd known more about it I would have stayed well clear!

Still, it's not even close to half the chemicals used in semiconductor production... I could tell you stories that wouldn't just turn your hair white- they'd make it burst into flames...

O.K., I've got a pot of coffee and i'm listening

Jem

[heroic]

[semiconductor factory]
O.K., I've got a pot of coffee and i'm listening

On my first day I was being walked past one of the cleanrooms when an alarm went off. It sounded oddly far away, but it was one of the alarm sounds from the training video, so I asked my guide what it meant just to confirm it. "Oh, that's the toxic gas alarm." I asked if that didn't mean we should, uh, evacuate or something. "It's just a test," he said. "The alarm's for people in the town a mile or so away. If that were a real alarm and not just a test, we'd already be dead by now."

The etchants used in silicon processing are phenomenally nasty. Some of them are so voracious in their hunger for organics (organic vapours are used in the ion implantation stages) that you can see specks of dust flashing into flame as they touch the surface, if you bring a sample out of the clean area.

The cleanroom had special thin panels on the walls so that if you spilled something on yourself, you could run, smash through the wall and go straight into a decontamination shower before it ate through your bunny suit. Apparently it would take about fifteen seconds with some of the chemicals used to eat through a polyester-dacron-teflon bunny suit.

I tried to stay out of the materials labs at that job. I always had the feeling that the kind of clumsy idiot move I tend to make would result in my messy demise, and on my gravestone it would say, "Well, that was stupid."

[Jem]

Wow, that sounds like fun

Seriously though, you quite often never realise what goes into making everyday items and the risks that some folks take to get them to us. I'll think about that now every time I switch on my PC.

Jem

[Things]

How about just feed it 240 or 110V into the 12V out?

[h2so4]

I knew HF was so toxic, and so I never opened the bottle. It is still lying in my cellar :-)

One year ago a friend of mine, during a stage at university, saw some processed related to semiconductor production and told me about some very, very interesting chemicals that guys used there......makes me remember the good old times when I used to play in my home-made chemical lab during middle school years! Some kind of nostalgia....

Anyway, I am always grateful to those who, with their work and the risks involved, make it possible to have the technology I use everyday...including the lasers!!!

[FrankenPC]

My dad used to work at UCSD on laser research. One of his babies was an eximer laser powered by Fluorine. The security system surrounding that laser and the large tank of fluorine was ominous. You couldn't be inside the containment room when you wanted to activate the laser. My dad said if any fluorine gas (or was it liquid?) were to come in contact with your skin, it would instantly pass through your skin and flow through your body like a welding torch through Styrofoam.

[Alsone]

Hydroflouric acid is extremely toxic, decalcifies your bones and soaks in through your skin very quickly.

There are tales of people who've spilt on their hands having to cut their arms off to save their lives, its very nasty stuff!

From the Wikipedia:

Hydrofluoric acid is corrosive and a contact poison. It should be handled with extreme care, beyond that accorded to other mineral acids, in part because of its low dissociation constant, which allows HF to penetrate tissue more quickly. Symptoms of exposure to hydrofluoric acid may not be immediately evident. HF interferes with nerve function and burns may not initially be painful. Accidental exposures can go unnoticed, delaying treatment and increasing the extent and seriousness of the injury.[2] Death can occur if as little as 2.5% of total body surface area is exposed to concentrated HF, while hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia can occur from smaller surface area or lower concentrations.[1] Hydrogen fluoride is released upon combustion of fluorine-containing compounds such as products containing Viton and Teflon parts. Hydrogen fluoride converts immediately to hydrofluoric acid upon contact with water.