Research on RF-generated Plasma Polishing

Abstract The use of plasma for super smooth surface polishing is well established in the microelectronic and optical industry. In this paper the polishing effects of RF-generated plasma were investigated using a capacitively coupled plasma apparatus. During the polishing of silica substrate, a mixture of SF6, O2 and Ar plasma was used. In order to investigate the effects of variant plasma parameters on surface roughness and removal rate, several experiments were implemented. During the polishing process the plasma was monitored using optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and the plasma temperatures were computed according to the spectral lines. This study is helpful for the understanding of the plasma polishing mechanism.