Silica slurry used as abrasives in wafer polishing process is made by dispersing silica particles in an alkali solution. Since commercially available colloidal or fumed silica particles need some modifications to be directly used as abrasive slurry due to their small sizes, irregular shapes or broad size distribution, we have prepared silica abrasives by particle growth of fumed silica or colloidal silica as seeds by sol-gel method. Silica slurries prepared by this step-wise growth from commercial seeds were tested using one-armed polisher for the comparison with commercial slurries and showed the performance comparable to commercial slurries. Microstructures of polishing slurries were investigated using transmission electron microscopy and ARES rheometer. From the result, stability of the slurry was found to be more important than the primary particle sizes for the polishing performance.
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