Polishing

  1. Cover top (transducer/waveguide side) of sample with AZ 3330 or other colored photoresist.
    1. Do not spin on resist, but try to keep a smooth layer across the sample
  2. Let dry overnight, or bake in a dish in the clean oven until hard (roughly 20 min at 80 C)
  3. Using alignment chuck, clamp into polisher holder
  4. Find the height from the sample with the dials on the polisher
  5. Set polisher to several microns below edge (depending on available space between edge and bonding pads)
    1. This distance is variable, since it requires that the sample edge be entirely ground off to a square
    2. It is also important to have the polisher move such that the last piece of the sample hit is the edge of interest
  6. Run the polisher until the sample is no longer in contact with the chuck
  7. Change to a finer chuck
  8. Set polisher to 1 micron deeper
  9. Polish until no longer in contact
  10. Repeat steps 7-9 until finished with finest grit
  11. Clean off resist using an acetone spray and IPA rinse