The use of atomic hydrogen to clean carbon contaminants on multilayers in extreme ultraviolet lithography systems has been extensively investigated. Additional knowledge of the cleaning rate would not only provide a better understanding of the reaction mechanism but would also inform the industry's cleaning process. In this paper, which focuses on the atomic-hydrogen-based carbon contamination cleaning process, a possible mechanism for the associated reactions is studied and a cleaning model is established. The calculated results are in good agreement with the existing experimental data in the literature. The influences of the main factors – such as activation energy and types of contamination – on the cleaning rate are addressed by the model. The model shows that the cleaning rate depends on the type of carbon contamination. The rate for a polymer-like carbon layer is higher than the rate for graphitic and diamond-like carbon layers. At 340K, the rate for a polymer-like carbon layer is 10 times higher than for graphitic carbon layers. This model could be used effectively to predict and evaluate the cleaning rates for various carbon contamination types.