Average diameter of polymer particles with spherical form
Progress Report 2011-09-28
Information exchange on microscopy equipment and experience on measurements on average diameter of polymer particles with spherical form. The project includes exchange of measurements results and uncertainty evaluation on samples originating from one common production batch of particles (id.no DNT 100/6), nominal size 10 µm. Also other dimensions can be included in the project on request, so far 1 µm, 2 µm and 10 µm is available.
Follow-up work might include swapping samples between participants to find out if there are significant differences in measurement results or if particle dimension is unstable.
Final Report 2016-07-01
Different methods of measurement of micrometer size polymer particles (nominal size Ø10μm) at national laboratories in EURAMET have been demonstrated: METAS (CH): Photomask method. MIKES (FI): Optical CMM, Mitutoyo Quickvision Hyper DFM (DK): Atomic Force microscope (only measurements of size Ø 0,5 μm) INRIM (IT): Optical microscope, using software algorithms for evaluation of pattern cell size. JV (NO): Optical microscope (Olympus BX51TF).
Manual measurements of average diameter of spheres in a selforganized pattern of spheres in close contact. An uncertainty budget was developed, which included the simulated effect of particle size distribution on the selforganized hexagonal 2D monolayer pattern on an object glass. This effect is small for smaller diameters (1 μm < D < 10 μm) with good ability to build large pattern areas, but we see an increasing effect for larger diameters, (D > 50 μm) with less ability to build large areas of hexagonal pattern. Measurement results from different laboratories showed good agreement and the material also showed good dimensional stability throught the period of measurements, ca 7 years between first and last measurement.