Give me the list of nondestructive test used for "thin film with substrate" for characterization. Thank you.
Thin film on substrate can be characterized by UV-absorption. But it depends whether your film is semi-conducting or what is the film constituted of. If the film is semi-conducting, then band gap can be determined. Moreover, SEM/TEM can be done if the sample has been deposited on silicon wafer. Moreover XRD of the film can be done by which different xrd peaks can be identified and crystallite size can be determined.
The choice of methods is related to your thin film material and what you want to know about it.
Is it epitaxial? Then RHEED or LEED can be used to detect crystallographic orientation, lattice parameters etc. Is it magnetic? Then MOKE would be a good instrument. Are you interested in the surface roughness or the material composition? Try SEM (with EDX). Is it conductive? Are you interested in heat conductivity, abrasion resistance, hydrophobicity, ...?
There's a lot of non-destructive characterization methods, depending on the parameters you want to know.
Few different nondestructive methods can be used, such as AFM , which can be used to control roughness , grain shape , orientation of film ( preferential or not). By XRD it is possible to determine phase composition, crystalline size, TEM is very useful tool...
It depends what you want to know, what the films are, and how thick. For example X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) for film surface chemistry (a few nm penetration) may be better than EDX in SEM. Raman and FTIR might be useful, particularly for organics. You could use X-Ray Reflectivity and Spectroscopic Ellipsometry to study layer structure and interfaces. Atomic Force Microscopy for the surface structure etc.
It also depends what kind of your thin film and which properties that you want know.
Consolidating the words of above researchers, you can do
XRD,Raman, UV-Vis, FTIR,AFM/SEM/TEM, XPS,RHEED or LEED.
In addition to that you can also do Photoluminescence (PL) characteristics.
As stated above it depends on coating-substrate system and on properties you are interested in.
For hardness nano-test with small loads is suitable.
For pores characterization - a solution that reacts with substrate under coating (if pores are present) giving a coloured product , e.g. K3[Fe(CN)6] + NaCl water solution for iron-based substrates.
Surface wettability by advancing contact angle measurement (ASTM D7334) is also a non-destructive technique.
It depends on what you are looking for:
There are different non-destructive tests that gives different properties of thin films.
1. Profilometer for film thickness.
2. AFM or SPM (scanning probe microscopy) for surface topography.
3. Four point probe Sheet Resistivity or non contact mode sheet resistance measurement setup for electrical properties.
4. XRD crystal structure and for stress measurement in thin films.
5. SEM, TEM .
6. XRF for elemental/chemical analysis.
7. UV-VIS spectroscopy for optical properties like transmission and for semi-conducting properties like band gap determination.
There are plenty of more techniques which are available in literature, but it would depend on what kind of property you are looking for.
There are several destructive techniques as well.
1. Like scratch test for adhesion measurement.
2. Nano Indentation for hardness and elasticity.
etc.
For mechanical testing of thin films, surface acoustic wave (SAW) are also a suitable method.
In non-piezoelectric materials, SAW can easily be created by short laser pulses and detected by piezo-electric sensor.
The dispersion of the SAW is measured and a fit procedure yields the Young's modulus of the film material.
Attached some information about the method.
As well Ellipsometry (spectroscopic) to determine the thickness and optical properties of your thin film. It is non-destructive and even if you have an Imaging ellipsometer, you can detect microstructured surfaces (down to 1 micron lateral, and 1 nm in z)
Best regards
Christian
Characterization of thin film materials is a broad science. Eg. Mechanical properties, physical and chemical properties.
If it is related to mechanical properties, nanoindentation and nanoscratch tests are the proper techniques to characterize thin film properties. For more details go through below links. These articles might be helpful.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app.43532/full
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032386116301227
We use surface acoustic waves to characterize thin films.
Fraunhofer IWS has developed a device LAwave which uses short laser pulses to create these surface acoustic waves in a wide spectrum.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Chemistry
- Nanotechnology
- Nanostructures
- Thin Films