Study on the processing characteristics of SiC and sapphire substrates polished by semi fixed and fixed abrasive tools
Abstract The semi fixed and fixed polishing film with diamond and alumina abrasive are used for a contrastive experiment involving polishing SiC and sapphire substrates in this study. The material removal rate (MRR) and surface topography of substrate, the protrusion height of abrasive together with the wear debris, are investigated to reveal the processing characteristic of substrates. The removal mode of substrate is brittle removal when the material removal scale is tens of nanometers or more. It is plastic removal mode when the material removal scale is nanoscale. A smooth substrate surface with nanoscale roughness and a relatively high MRR can be achieved simultaneously only when the material removal scale is uniform with a size of tens of nanometers.