Study on Chemical Mechanical Polishing Mechanism of LiTaO₃ Wafer

In this paper, the scratching processes by a diamond indentor under the loads linearly increased from zero were studied to assess the mechanical behavior of LiTaO3 crystal wafer. Material removal mechanism of LiTaO3 crystal by mechanical loads was analyzed based on the measured acoustic signals in the scratching processes and the observation on the scratched surfaces of LiTaO3 wafers. The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) processes of LiTaO3 wafers were analyzed in detail according to the observation and measurement of the polished surfaces of LiTaO3 wafers with SEM and XRD. The research results show that there exist four regimes along the scratched groove with the increasing of down force in a scratching process of LiTaO3 crystal wafer, and the critical load for each regime is affected by the loading speed and final load, etc. When H2O2 and KOH are added into the polishing slurry, the material of LiTaO3 wafer is removed by chemical reaction and mechanical action sequentially in the CMP processes, and the material removal rate increases while the surface roughness is improved.