Development and characterization of a combinative technique for improving the polishing performance of diamond microarray dresser

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a combinative method composed of a micro-fabrication and nickel electroforming for fabricating a diamond microarray dresser and utilizing a chemical treatment to realize the oxygenated diamond grits embedded into a nickel micro-column. By comparing the current commercial dressers, the diamond microarray not only increases to approximately 35% in the material removal rate, but also maintained a relatively low weight loss in itself. The diamond microarray consists of the regular arrangement micro-columns, which are addressed with oxygenated diamond grits to acquire sufficient bonding strength via smoothing the deposit surrounding the grits derived from the diamond surface modification. This composite diamond/micro-column also provides a high amount of working diamond grits that disperse the impact force on each single diamond grit by micro-fabrication and nickel electroforming to control precisely the uniformity of the distribution and height level of the surface-modified diamond grits. This manufacturing process has the potential to simplify considerably the fabrication and integration of the surface-modified diamond grits on pad dresser-compatible substrates. Consequently, the improvement in the material removal rate and extension of the dresser life are enabled under dressing conditions by a well-patterned micro-column for plowing action at the interface between the polishing pad and oxygenated diamond grits.