Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Adhesion Effect on Material Removal and Tool Wear in Diamond Grinding of Silicon Wafer

Abstract

This study aims to clarify the interaction between a silicon wafer and individual diamond abrasives in grinding to support the estimation of optimal grinding conditions for minimizing the subsurface damages and maximizing the removal rate. In this paper, the effects of adhesion (or lubrication) between a Si wafer and a diamond abrasive on the material removal and tool wear were analyzed by means of the molecular dynamics simulation. A few simulations were performed with changing the dissociation (cohesion) energy of a Morse potential function between a pair of Si and C atoms to evaluate the influence of adhesion on the material removal process. As a result, a trend similar to the actual diamond grinding process of silicon wafer was confirmed, which suggested that the reduction in adhesion (or proper lubrication) is effective for the reduction in subsurface damages, grinding forces, grinding temperature and tool wear, but may lead to reduction in the material removal rate as well.