Scope and Objectives

Develop a portable state-of-the-art tensile system as an attachment for commercially available FTIR spectroscopy instrument; to perform optical imaging and IR transmission spectroscopy, on mechanically loaded nanoscale freestanding polymeric thin films as a function of accumulated strain.

Deliverables

The primary outcome for the proposed system is to extract the mechanical response combined with transmission FTIR on nanoscale films simultaneously, which is the same as that obtained separately from the two methods.

Videos

Scientific Output

A prototype of the setup has been developed and experiments have been conducted on polymer films for the simultaneous capture of optical fields and transmission IR spectra. Note: Cannot put the picture of the setup as it would give away the main idea. Please contact us directly, if you want to see or use the setup at IITB.

Results and outcome till date

New PVDF samples 4 micron were fabrication and in situ experiments were conducted.

Societal benefit and impact anticipated

The main benefit of the developed setup is that it is portable with fully integrated and interchangeable optics for use in any commercial FTIR spectroscopy for mechanical experiments with simultaneous optical imaging. So, anyone interested in understanding structure property correlations through spectroscopy can utilized this high precision setup.

Next steps

The main challenge remains now is nanoscale polymer films. This is an important addition to make this instrument study some fundamental problems in polymers and soft materials.

Publications and reports

1 inventions disclosure submission has been made and publications will follow patent filing in the coming months.

Patents

Applied for 1 patent.

Scholars and Project Staff

Kartheek Pilla (PhD)
Gowtham R. (MTech)

Challenges faced

Funding shortage for equipment to make corrections and refinements to the setup. Availability of spectrometers to test our setup in various configurations. Problems with procured equipment, their re-export and repairs taking a long time.

Other information

Request timely disbursal of funds from partner institution .