CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) characteristics of langasite single crystals for SAW filter applications

Langasite is a promising new piezoelectric material for SAW filter application. Little was known until recently about the methods needed to mechanically polish and chemically polish/etch this material. In this experiment, polishing, slurry chemistry and chemical wet etching for langasite is described. Conventional quartz and LN ($LiNbO_3$) polishing methods did not produce satisfactory polished surfaces, and polishing with a colloidal silica slurries has shown to be most effective. The optimum condition was investigated by changing the slurry chemistry. As the planarization effect is very important in SAW filter applications, the examination of the effective particle number effect and the particle size effect was carried out. Z-cut langasite surface which had been polished with the colloidal silica slurries was etched in a variety of etchants. Conventional quartz etchants destroyed the polished surface. Other etchants formed a thin film on the surfaces. In this experiment, the reaction between langasite and a few etching solution was analysed. And an appropriate selective etchant solution for analyzing the defects was synthesized.