🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec16.140721.22950@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com>, A10035@email.mot.com (Scott Lindsey) writes...
{In article <1992Dec15.224100.25463@infonode.ingr.com>, brantley@infonode.ingr.com (Dwight D. Brantley) writes:
{> 
{> I have been experimenting with determining the integrity of cross linked
{> polymers.  So far I have exposing my samples in an oxygen rich plasma etch
{> for 10 minutes then analyzing the sample in a SEM.  I think we are seeing
{> that examples of proper or "good" cross linked polymers show a grain of
{> structure of uniform size and orientation while the "bad" samples seem
{> to display a wide variation of grain size over a given area.  Is this a
{> viable method of analyzing such materials?  Can anyone add anything to
{> this?  I am not very familiar with such materials so consider me mostly
{> ignorant on this subject.  Any information (in simple terms) would be of
{> great help.
{> 
{> Thanks,
{> 
{>       ******************************************************************
{>       *   Dwight Brantley    *   Failure Analysis & Reliability Dept.  *
{>       *  Intergraph, Corp.   *  Reply To: brantley@falab1.b21.ingr.com *
{>       *   Huntsville, AL     *           Voice: 205-730-4456           *
{>       ******************************************************************
{> 
{Since you claim to be relatively unfamiliar with polymer materials, I will
{just say that you must be careful that you are not changing the crosslinking
{with the SEM!! (You can be crosslinking or degrading, depending on which polymer
{you are looking at). What polymers are you looking at?

Some work with ESCA (aka XPS) has been used to identify surface crosslinking.
The work is by D.T. Clark around 1970's, I'll try and dig up the reference.

-Eric 
ewstroup@cc.utah.edu