Abrasive effects in oxide chemical mechanical polishing

In this study, we have characterized the effects of abrasive properties, primarily particle size, on the Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) of oxide films. Sol-gel silica particles with very narrow size distributions were used for preparing the polishing slurries. The results indicate that as particle size increases, there is a transition in the mechanism of material removal from a surface area based mechanism to an indentation-based mechanism. In addition, the surface morphology of the polished samples was characterized, with the results showing that particles larger than 0.5 μm are detrimental to the quality of the SiO₂ surface.