Method for obtaining atomically smooth substrates from single-crystal silicon by mechanical lapping

The paper reports on the developed technique for polishing single-crystal silicon substrates using a mechanical lap. The effective substrate roughness was obtained in the spatial frequency range of 0.025–65 $\mu$m$^{-1}$ at the level of 0.37 nm and 0.18 nm at a frame size on the surface of 2 $\times$ 2 $\mu$m$^2$. The result obtained is comparable with the results of chemical-mechanical and dynamic polishing of single-crystal silicon wafers for microelectronics.