Designing, Building and Testing of a Polymer Evaporation System

Adnan K. Butt

Date of Graduation

Summer 2004

Degree

Master of Science in Materials Science

Department

Physics, Astronomy, and Materials Science

Committee Chair

Ryan Giedd

Abstract

Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) or more commonly known as thermal evaporation is a very versitile and cost effective deposition process in growing polymer thin films compared to Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD). In the research lab here at Southwest Missouri State University we have a thermal evaporation system for growing thin films which is specifically used for growing metal thin films. The scope of this research was to successfully design, build and test a thermal evaporation system specifically used for growing metal thin films.The polymers that will be used to test the system are TPD {N,N'-diphenyl-N,N'-bis(3-methylphenyl)1-1'biphenyl-4,4'diamine} and Alq₃ {Aluminum salt (8-Hydroxquinoline)} which have luminescence properties and PVDF {Poly(vinylidine fluoride)} which has ferroelectric properties. The characterization methods that will be used to test the polymer thin films grown using the polymer evaporation system will be Raman spectroscopy and the Atomic Force Microscope. Raman spectroscopy will be used to determine whether the polymer retains its molecular structure after evaporation and the AFM will be used to illustrate the surface morphology and thickness of the thin films. We expect TPD and Alq₃ to evaporate successfully in the system, since these polymers have previously been evaporated in the thermal evaporation system.

Subject Categories

Materials Science and Engineering

Copyright

© Adnan K. Butt

Citation-only

Dissertation/Thesis

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