I made a thin film of a polymer on a glass substrate. I want to measure thickness of the polymer on the glass substrate. Also, I want to measure adhesion of the polymer.
The easiest and most convincing way is to perform a confocal Raman Spectroscopy depth profiling of the sample in the (XZ direction). This should result in dinstict color coded images (a) the polymer and be (b) the glass substrate. This is because the different layers polymer/glass in the film can be clearly resolved and matched with their associated Raman Spectrum. One will therefore be able to estimate the thickness of each layer. You can also obtain using the same instrument ( Combined Confocal Raman Spectroscopy + AFM ) aperform AFM in the Digital Pulsed Force Mode in the non contact mode which should more information about such as (a) viscosity (b) adhesion (c) stiffness and etc.
Hi, for sem cross-section analysis you can submerge a sample on liquid Nitrogen, the glass substrate will break and you will get nice cross-sections to analyse.
Other way to measure the thickness is by using a profilometer.
For the measure thickness and adhesion of a polymer deposited on a glass substrate, you can choose embedding method, and then using mirror polishing technique to get a proper sample for AFM or SEM.