Study on the characterization and grinding technology of "soft-brittle" functional materials

近年来，为了满足半导体和光学工业的要求，开发了新的功能材料。这些材料大多为单晶，机械性能呈“软脆”特征，加工难度大。作为一种典型的多功能单晶材料，钽酸锂（LiTaO3或LT）具有优异的光电、热释电和压电性能，目前已被广泛应用于许多领域，特别是在电信领域。然而，其力学和物理性能及其对磨削性能的影响尚不完全清楚。本研究项目旨在通过发现“软脆”材料的机械和物理性能，特别是热释电效应和压电效应的影响，建立一种固定的LT晶圆磨料工艺，以实现高几何精度和表面完整性。

New functional materials has been developed to meet the requirements from semiconductor and optical industries recently. Most of those materials are made in single crystal and present "soft-and-brittle" characteristic in their mechanical property, thus are very difficult to be machined.As a typical multi-functional single crystal material, Lithium tantalate (LiTaO3 or LT) exhibits its excellent electro-optical, pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties, and has now been widely applied into many applications, especially in the telecommunication field. However, its mechanical and physical properties and the influence on the grinding performance are still not fully understood. This research project aims to establishment of a fixed abrasive process for LT wafers to achieve both high geometry accuracy and surface integrity, via discovery of influence of the mechanical and physical properties of "soft-and-brittle" materials, especially, its pyroelectric effect and piezoelectric effect.