Finishing of silicon film for silicon-on-glass

Surface smoothing and removal of the damaged portion of as-transferred single crystalline silicon films is described. The process includes sacrificial plasma oxidation and wet stripping of the oxide. Typically, the topmost 20 nm of silicon film is removed in one cycle. Rougness of the film surface significantly improves upon the plasma/strip cycle. The process can be used for either SOI or silicon-on-glass (SiOG) finishing. As conventional CMP is not feasible for SiOG finishing, the described process has a unique advantage for finishing SiOG.