Abstract

LEAL, David; GARCIA, Levi; MORONTA, Delfín  and  MANTILLA, John. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR THE ELABORATION OF THIN FILMS USING DIP-COATING PROCESS. Rev. Fac. Ing. UCV [online]. 2011, vol.26, n.1, pp.143-148. ISSN 0798-4065.

The process of coating by immersion, or Dip-Coating, is utilized to obtain thin mono-coats and multi-coats. It involves the immersion and later withdrawal of a substrate (glass, metal, etc.) into a reservoir containing a solution used for the formation of a coat. In this paper we describe a low cost microcontroller-based dip-coater design and construction. The coater has a withdrawal velocity ranging between 0.8 cm/min and 25 cm/min. To achieve this performance, a mechanical subsystem for the substrate transportation and an electronic and computational subsystem for its control, was designed and elaborated using the microcontroller PIC16F877A. The system is operated by means of a notebook or a PDA. To test the complete system, a series of silica over glass films with one, five and ten coats were made. They were characterized by means of the transmission electron microscopy technique (TEM) and optical interferometry technique

Keywords : Dip-Coating; Microcontroller; Thin film; Withdrawal Speed; Electronic notebook.