Ultrasonic flexural vibration assisted chemical mechanical polishing for sapphire substrate

The sapphire substrates are polished by traditional chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) and ultrasonic flexural vibration (UFV) assisted CMP (UFV–CMP) respectively with different pressures. UFV–CMP combines the functions of traditional CMP and ultrasonic machining (USM) and has special characteristics, which is that ultrasonic vibrations of the rotating polishing head are in both horizontal and vertical directions. The material removal rates (MRRs) and the polished surface morphology of CMP and UFV–CMP are compared. The MRR of UFV–CMP is two times larger than that of traditional CMP. The surface roughness (root mean square, RMS) of the polished sapphire substrate of UFV–CMP is 0.83 Å measured by the atomic force microscopy (AFM), which is much better than 2.12 Å obtained using the traditional CMP. And the surface flatness of UFV–CMP is 0.12 μm, which is also better than 0.23 μm of the traditional CMP. The results show that UFV–CMP is able to improve the MRR and finished surface quality of the sapphire substrates greatly. The material removal and surface polishing mechanisms of sapphire in UFV–CMP are discussed too.