• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제34권6호
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• pp.209-216
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• 2018

Sapphire is a substrate material that is widely used in optical and electronic devices. However, the processing of sapphire into a substrate takes a long time owing to its high hardness and chemical inertness. In order to process the sapphire ingot into a substrate, ingot growth, multiwire sawing, lapping, and polishing are required. The lap grinding process using pellets is known as one of the ways to improve the efficiency of sapphire substrate processing. The lap grinding process ensures high processing efficiency while utilizing two-body abrasion, unlike the lapping process which utilizes three-body abrasion by particles. However, the lap grinding process has a high material removal rate (MRR), while its weakness is in obtaining the required surface roughness for the final polishing process. In this study, we examine the effects of free abrasives in lap grinding on the material removal characteristics of sapphire substrate. Before conducting the lap grinding experiments, it was confirmed that the addition of free abrasives changed the friction force through the pin-on-disk wear test. The MRR and roughness reduction rate are experimentally studied to verify the effects of free abrasive concentration on deionized water. The addition of free abrasives (colloidal silica) in the lap grinding process can improve surface roughness by three-body abrasion along with two-body abrasion by diamond grits.