Smoothing of surface of silica glass by heat treatment in wet atmosphere

The effect of heat treatment on the surface morphology of fused silica glass substrates was investigated. It was found that the water vapor pressure during heat treatment had a strong influence on the flattening of the silica glass surface. The surface of the frosted glass changed into a transparent and lustrous surface after heat treatment with water vapor at 1200 degrees C for 48 h, whereas surface irregularities remained for heat treatment under a dry atmosphere. It was suggested that the difference in surface flattening was caused by changes in surface viscosity that depended on the concentration of OH groups on the surface. In order to quantitatively understand the effect of the heat treatment atmosphere, power spectral density (PSD) analysis and a novel peak and valley method were applied to the experimental results. From the PSD analysis, it was found that the Mullins' model could not explain the smoothing behavior by heat treatment. The peak and valley method, which could separate the surface morphology into the surface irregularities and the background undulation, revealed that the Mullins' model limitation was mainly for the surface and the background undulation could be understood within the model. These results indicate that there are different mechanisms between for the surface smoothing and for the relaxation of the background undulation. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3587229]