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.
I didn't read the article, but it's likely they are faster than light is when traveling through that water. light can have different speeds through different media.
as to why in this case: it can be somewhat intuitive to think that photons would be forced to take a somewhat longer path when traveling through a medium they interact with a lot (water, anything with a charge) then something which is almost going at the speed of light and famously doesn't interact with almost anything!
> A neutrino interaction with the electrons or nuclei of water can produce a charged particle that moves faster than the speed of light in water, which is slower than the speed of light in vacuum. This creates a cone of light known as Cherenkov radiation, which is the optical equivalent to a sonic boom. The Cherenkov light is projected as a ring on the wall of the detector and recorded by the PMTs.
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.