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- 2011 (4) (entfernen)
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- Ellipsometry (2)
- Adhesion strength (1)
- Air-coupled ultrasonic transducers (1)
- Bonding strength (1)
- Centrifuge test (1)
- Gas sensing (1)
- Gas sensor (1)
- Iron doped tin oxide (1)
- Optical coatings (1)
- Polypropylene ferroelectret (1)
The extremely low acoustic impedance of polypropylene ferroelectret combined with its piezoelectric properties makes this material suitable for construction of aircoupled ultrasonic transducers for non-destructive testing. For the fabrication of transducers with a stable quality, the reproducibility of their key parameters is of interest.
The reproducibility was evaluated by means of (i) impedance spectroscopy and (ii) pulse-echo measurements. (i) Impedance spectroscopy was applied to identify the resonance frequency, the coupling factor and the acoustic impedance of several nominally identical transducers. (ii) Pulse-echo measurements yielded the signal form of these transducers.
The variation of the signal amplitude measured with pulseecho technique was about 10 dB. A part of this variation Comes from the deposition of transducer electrodes and another part from local variations of ferroelectret properties. The variation of the signal amplitude was caused by the observed variation of the coupling factor, which was also about 10 dB. The variation of the acoustic impedance was only about 1 dB, thus having no effect on the variation of the signal amplitude.
These results indicate that the variability can be reduced by improving the control of electrode deposition and by optimizing the production technology affecting the reproducibility of material properties.
In this work, thin iron doped tin oxide layers (3–6 nm) were investigated with regard to gas sensitivity by means of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect with ellipsometric readout. The experimental set-up was a Kretschmann configuration with gold as metal layer. The sensor system was exposed to different concentrations of methane in the low ppm range and the sensor response of an uncoated gold layer compared to a gold layer coated with iron doped tin oxide. The additional layer effects stability with regard to drift behavior of the sensor and an increase in sensitivity. Furthermore, the sensor is able to detect the toxic gas carbon monoxide in low concentration range (down to 0.5 ppm). The thin layers were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary electron microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The possible mechanisms taking place on the surface are discussed.
An ellipsometric gas sensor based on the surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of ~ 43 nm thick gold layers was investigated. To protect the gold layer from contamination and to improve the detection limits, the gold layers were top-coated with 5–6 nm thick layers of organic a-C:H or with inorganic metal oxides TiO2 or ZrO2. The additional layers increased the long-term stability, whereas the metal oxide layers protect better than a-C:H. Furthermore, the additional layers decreased the detection limits by one order of magnitude in case of a-C:H and two orders of magnitude in case of the oxides. It could be shown that the detection limits also depend on the kind of preparation (sol–gel process or physical vapour deposition) of the additional layers.
Although adhesion testing of coatings is of fundamental interest for quality assurance, it is still a challenge regarding reliable quantitative results. Because of the huge variety of coating/ substrate systems in terms of materials and thickness range, adhesion tests display the same variety as coating/substrate systems. Some tests are qualitative, many are quantitative but except for the pull (DIN EN ISO 15870) and pull-off test (DIN EN ISO 4624) adhesion is not measured in terms of force per area.
For optical coatings, the standardized tests according to ISO 9211-4 apply, i.e. abrasion tests (cheese cloth or eraser test) and adhesion tests (tape or cross-hatch test) with different degrees of severity. Instead of the adhesion strength, all these single-sample tests provide only quantitative information on the abrasion or adhesion resistance of a particular coating/ substrate system.
The centrifuge test has manifold advantages. First, it can be easily run as multiple-sample test. Second, adhesion strength is measured in absolute numbers (N/mm2). Third, the centrifuge test requires only a one-sided sample support instead of a two-sided sample clamping as the pull- and pull-off test do. Fourth, it is much easier and faster than many other tests. Fifth, the centrifuge technology additionally enables tests under defined climates or harsh environments. Last but not least, versatile test conditions (alternating loads at various load rates) important to fatigue testing can be easily realized by varying the number of revolutions.
The centrifuge test was applied to the testing of optical coatings on glass and CaF2. It could be shown that there are significant advantages compared to other tests. In particular, the centrifuge test was able to discriminate the adhesion strength for coating/substrate systems until failure which all passed the standardized tests of ISO 9211-4.