SiC materials such as sintered SiC, CVD-SiC, and monocrystalline SiC are hard-to-difficult to grind, and they are expected to be applied for optical elements, structural components, dies and molds, and semiconductors. The authors investigated the mirror surface grinding characteristics of these SiC materials. A comparison on mirror surface grinding characteristics between polycrystalline SiC and monocrystalline SiC has been conducted. Metal-bonded diamond grinding wheels and a rotary grinding method have been applied under a variety of grinding conditions. As a result, very high quality of mirror surfaces has been successfully achieved on both materials using high mesh sized grinding wheels.

Keywords: SiC, Mirror surface grinding, In-feed grinding, ELID grinding.