Nanomechanical Properties and Nanostructure of CMG and CMP Machined Si Substrates

Silicon (100) substrates machined by chemo-mechanical-grinding (CMG) and chemicalmechanical- polishing (CMP) were investigated using atomic force microscopy, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and nanoindentation. It was found that the substrate surface after CMG was slightly better than machined by CMP in terms of roughness. The transmission electron microscopy analysis showed that the CMG-generated subsurface was defect-free, but the CMP specimen had a crystalline layer of about 4 nm in thickness on the top of the silicon lattice as evidenced by the extra diffraction spots. Nanoindentation results indicated that there exists a slight difference in mechanical properties between the CMG and CMP machined substrates.