Patent ID: 7029747

Claim:
An integral polishing pad which performs a polishing operation by moving in contact with a surface of an object being polished, the integral polishing pad comprising: an elastic support layer, which is made of a nonporous solid uniform polymer and at least partially transparent to a light source used to detect the surface state of the object being polished; and a polishing layer, which is formed on the elastic support layer and semitransparent to the light source, and has a higher hardness than the elastic support layer, wherein the elastic support layer and the polishing layer are made of materials chemically compatible with each other so that a structural border between the elastic support layer and the polishing layer does not exist, and the polishing layer comprises a polymeric matrix made from a material chemically compatible with the elastic support layer and a plurality of liquid microelements embedded in the polymeric matrix, and a plurality of open pores defined by the embedded liquid microelements are distributed across a surface of the polishing layer.