A novel method for micro-gap control in electrogenerated chemical polishing

In the electrogenerated chemical polishing (EGCP), material removal rate (MRR) is inversely proportional to the processing gap. To polish a workpiece with a large area, high and uniform MRR is necessary, which prefers a small and uniform processing gap. Based on the principle of the hydrostatic support, a novel micro-gap control method is proposed. The method uniformly controls the gap between the electrode and workpiece to a micro level over a large area. A relationship between the gap size and the inlet pressure is derived theoretically and verified experimentally. The proposed method is successfully applied to the polishing of a Cu surface with a diameter of 50 mm. Promising results are obtained that surface roughness and flatness are reduced from average roughness (Ra) 82 nm and peak-to-valley (PV) value 290 nm to Ra 4 nm and PV 120 nm, respectively.