Atomic-level smoothing of glass and silicon surfaces by water polishing with an acrylic polymer plate

Polishing techniques have been used since antiquity but remain important in high-value manufacturing processes in optics and semiconductor fields. State-of-the-art polishing enables the production of atomically flat surfaces of even advanced materials, such as diamond, SiC, and GaN, by exploiting the exceptional chemical characteristics of particle surfaces, fluid solutions, and pad surfaces. Although various effective chemical reactions are employed, chemical reactivities of organic polymer surfaces have not been thoroughly explored. We demonstrate a water-only and slurry-less polishing technique using an acrylic polymer plate. We investigated the possibility of glass processing with several polymer materials and found that normal acrylic polymers have remarkable properties for polishing. Glass and silicon surfaces with atomic-level flatness can be produced using only an acrylic polymer plate and water. We believe that the developed polishing methods will become popular in the future because they are simple and cost-effective processes.