Investigation on surface roughness in chemical mechanical polishing of TiO2 thin film

Abstract： Surface roughness by peaks and depressions on the surface of titanium dioxide （TiO2） thin film, which was widely used for an antireflection coating of optical systems, caused the extinction coefficient increase and affected the properties of optical system. Chemical mechanical polishing （CMP） is a very important method for surface smoothing. In this polishing experiment, we used self-formulated weakly alkaline slurry. Other process parameters were working pressure, slurry flow rate, head speed, and platen speed. In order to get the best surface roughness （1.16 A, the scanned area was 10 × 10 μm2） and a higher polishing rate （60.8 nm/min）, the optimal parameters were： pressure, 1 psi; slurry flow rate, 250 mL/min; polishing head speed, 80 rpm; platen speed, 87 rpm.