Grinding performance of pellet prepared using nanosize ceria particles

The cerium oxide particles of single crystal were obtained only by the combination of precipitation method and hydrothermal treatment at lower temperature than 200 °C. The particles showed plate-like shape even in the particle size of about 4 nm, and the plate-like plane was identified to be (1 1 1) from the observation of lattice images. By heating at 100–700 °C in air, the particle size was increased from about 4 to 60 nm maintaining the plate-like shape with elevating the temperature. These cerium oxide particles were applied as a fine abrasive grain for mirror grinding. We manufactured a grinding pellet, consisting of the plate-like cerium oxide particles, using electrophoretic deposition (EPD) phenomenon. It is called “ceria EPD pellet”. As a result of grinding of quartz-crystal wafer using the ceria EPD pellet, fine mirror surface with roughness less than 1 nmRy was realized. Grinding efficiency of the ceria EPD pellet was fourth time as high as a silica EPD pellet.