Polydisperse spherical colloidal silica particles: Preparation and application*

A new industrial method has been developed to produce polydisperse spherical colloidal silica particles with a very broad particle size, ranging from 20–95 nm. The process uses a reactor in which the original seed solution is heated to 100°C, and then active silicic acid and the seed solution are titrated to the reactor continuously with a constant rate. The original seeds and the titrated seeds in the reactor will go through different particle growth cycles to form different particle sizes. Both the particles' size distribution and morphology have been characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and the focus ion beam (FIB) system. In addition, the as-prepared polydisperse colloidal silica particle in the application of sapphire wafer's chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been tested. The material removal rate (MRR) of this kind of abrasive has been tested and verified to be much faster than traditional monodisperse silica particles. Finally, the mechanism of sapphire CMP process by this kind of polydisperse silica particles has been investigated to explore the reasons for the high polishing rate.