An experimental study on the ultra-precision polishing of quartz crystal using MR fluids and micro abrasives

Abstract

This paper presents ultra-precision MR polishing results of quartz crystal, which has been widely used in many applications, such as piezo-electric transducer, surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters and SAW resonators, etc. It is known that smooth surface with sub-nanometer roughness is needed for higher-frequency application. The MR fluids, used for the polishing, consist of DI water based carbonyl iron (CI), nonmagnetic polishing micro abrasives, and required amount of stabilizers. In the process, mixed fluids were supplied into the gap between a rotating wheel (with electromagnetic field) and the workpiece. Then, the micro abrasives contained in the fluids perform material removal action from the workpiece. Such material removal mechanism in the MR polishing is considered as a process governed by the Bingham flow in the contact zone. In this study, material removal characteristics and generated surface roughness of the quartz crystal specimens using the MR polishing process were investigated through a series of experiments. The surface roughness variations of the polished specimens were investigated by changing imposed polishing conditions, such as wheel speed, magnetic field intensity. As a result, very fine surface roughness of Ra=0.770nm was obtained.