Fast heating in µ-thermal analysis

Abstract

Thermal analysis of the 10 µm surface of materials using TA Instruments' µ-TA thermal probe and pulsed force mode AFM has shown promising results. This addresses the need of additional surface characterization based on principle of Thermal Analysis, which is complementary to other surface characterization techniques, i.e., Surface-IR, TOF-SIMS, etc. The method calls for identification of surface landscape by imaging first, followed by fast heating the spots of interest. The micro thermal probe is viewed to heat a small material with a tiny heater rather than to heat small material with a large heater in conventional thermal analysis. In this paper, we demonstrate the applicability in the adhesion temperature of the topical coatings of Tyvek® HDPE sheets, fusion of the heat-processed polyethylene fibers in a bundle, the surface crystallinity of PET pellets, and two examples of phase images of toughened Nylon 66. Comparisons were made where it is possible with standard thermal analysis techniques as well as with the microscopic techniques of AFM, TEM and optical.