Comment by pbhjpbhj

Ha, I had never heard of this effect despite having studied Kamiokande (well neutrinos, at least) as part of a mini-dissertation for my B.Sc.

However, looking for sources relating to leaching by ultra pure water (UPW) not much turned up.

I did however find on Google Scholar a paper "Ultrapure Water: friend or foe?"... which lead me to https://www.balazs.com/sites/balazs/files/2023-03/pub0039-up... . Reading between the lines, Marjorie Balazs appears to have made a career out of UPW; she says in that paper:

"The ability for UPW to absorb and dissolve or react with all kinds of materials complicates other aspects concerning its use in the processing of wafers."

Seems like UPW dissolves anything, so lends credence to the anecdote.

Interesting topic, hadn't thought about UPW for wafer fabrication before.