As device geometries continue to shrink below 0.5 mu m, previously acceptable levels of silicon contamination and lattice damage from energetic ion bombardment in reactive ion etchers are beginning to affect device performance and reliability through increased junction leakage and higher contact resistance. The Applied Materials remote plasma source (RPS), an isotropic chemical downstream etcher, was used to remove surface residues, impurity penetration, and silicon lattice damage to recover a device quality surface. Several diagnostic methods, including transmission electron microscopy, Rutherford backscattering, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, are used to investigate the effectiveness of a controlled silicon etch process in the RPS chamber.