A new method termed plasma-assisted etching (PaE) is introduced for the ultra-smooth finishing of single-crystal lutetium oxide. The feasibility of atmospheric pressure plasma modification is demonstrated through a quantum chemistry simulation, where the energy of the plasma modification reaction is −28.848 kcal/mol and the energy of the barrier is 14.377 kcal/mol. The irradiation of helium-based hydrogen (circa 0.5%) plasma with a flow rate of 2 L/min efficiently serves to modify the surface of single-crystal lutetium oxide into hydroxide at a rate of 320 nm/h. The experimental study shows that PaE using 25% sulfuric acid as the etchant can remove the modified layer of the lutetium oxide wafer without inducing crystallographic subsurface damage. The experimental results show that a scratch-free atomically flat surface with a surface roughness of 0.45 nm is achieved using this new approach.

引入了一种名为等离子辅助蚀刻（PaE）的新方法，用于单晶氧化oxide的超光滑表面处理。通过量子化学模拟证明了大气压等离子体改性的可行性，其中等离子体改性反应的能量为-28.848 kcal / mol，势垒的能量为14.377 kcal / mol。以2 L / min的流速辐射氦基氢（约0.5％）等离子体有效地以320 nm / h的速率将单晶氧化oxide表面改性为氢氧化物。实验研究表明，使用25％硫酸作为蚀刻剂的PaE可以去除氧化oxide晶片的改性层，而不会引起结晶表面下的破坏。