The Contact angle service of U7 is specialized in the characterization of surface-liquid interactions at the macro-scale. One can measure contact angle of different liquids and determine the surface free energy of different surfaces under investigation, as well as the wettability properties of different surfaces or different coatings.
Customer benefits
Our Contact angle service benefits from being part of a bioengineering-specialized research centre, providing wide knowledge in the treatment of different surfaces to tailor their properties according to the final bio-application. We offer custom services, assuring close and direct interaction with the client, to meet conclusive results and high-quality needs.
Target customer
Our target customers are researchers in the field of bioengineering or R&D departments of biotech companies which want to test, characterize, or compare different substrates, materials or prototypes.
Additional information
Contact angle measurement of diiodomethane on silicon wafer.
• Spin-coater
– Rotational speed: 100 to 12.000 rpm.
– Vacuum chucks: 45 and 100 mm diameters. Designed to locked substrates firmly, without deflection, and operate at very high rotational speed.
– Fragment adapters: 3 to 10 mm; 5 to 25 mm; 10 to 50 mm. Holders with an O-ring seal to maintain the vacuum level and at the same time cushion the substrate.
• Oven
– Temperature range: from 40°C to 250°C.
– Stability: ± 0.5°C at 100°C
– Uniformity: ± 1°C at 100°C
• Optical Microscopy
– The Epi-illuminator with 12V/100w halogen lamp allows bright images to be obtained irrespective of the observation method used: brightfield, darkfield, Nomarski or polarized observations.
– Microscope objective lenses: 5x, 10x, 20x, and 100x.
– Minimum Fine focus gradation: 1 µm.
– Microscope camera head (1380×1027 pixels) ideal for image acquisition.
– Software specially designed to measure the distances of the features in the images. With these data, it is able to establish a scale bar that can be displayed on the image.
• Profilometer
– Computer controlled measurements
– High-resolution camera for color video of a 2.6 mm area.
– Variable intensity illumination for viewing samples with differing reflectivity.
– Stylus radius: 2.5 µm and 5 µm
– Stylus tracking force: 1-15 mg
– Vertical Range: up to 262 µm
– Scan Length Range: from 50 µm to 30 mm
– Vertical Resolution: down to 1 Å
– Horizontal Resolution is controlled by the scan speed
– Mechanical and optical components for sample placement, viewing and scanning.
– Manual Stage X-Y Position and sample stage rotation.
• Interferometer
– Measurement modes:
o Vertical Shift Interferometry (VSI), based on white light vertical scanning interferometry, is used for measuring features in the range of 140 nm to several µm.
o Phase Shift Interferometry (PSI), based on optical phase shifting, is dedicated to roughness measurements. Small features (1 to 140 nm) can be measured.
– The system has an automated stitching stage for large area coverage.E40
– Light Source: tungsten halogen lamp. Its brightness can be adjusted.
– 2 objective lenses included with the interferometer are available: Michelson (5.0X) and Mirau (50X).
– Field-of-View (FOV) Lenses available: 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0. FOV are lenses placed between the camera and the objective lens to adjust the field size of view.
– CCD camera to transfer the images to a computer for analysis.
– Software Vision32®. Enables advanced calculations of various surface parameters and image processing.
– Performance:
o Vertical measurement range: 0.1 nm to 1 mm
o Vertical resolution: 1 < 1 Å Ra
o Vertical scan speed up to 7.2 µm/sec
o Lateral spatial sampling 0.08 to 13.1 µm
o Field-of-View 8.24 mm to 0.05 mm (larger areas with data stitching mode)
• Plasma Cleaner
•- Processing method available: Oxygen or air plasma
•- Chamber dimensions: 3” diameter by 7” deep
•- Adjustable RF Frequency: 8 -12 MHz
•- Power settings: Low (6.8 W), medium ( 10.5 W) and high (18 W)