Homemade Dip Coating Machine for Thin Films

Abstract

In recent years, the use of thin films for several purposes has been increased rapidly. The performance of thin film coated on the material is related to the sensitivity of electronic dip coating devices. Especially, the differences in production techniques and production conditions reveal many features in thin films. With the development of technology, new production technologies and techniques that may be alternative to each other in the production of thin films have been emerged and developed. Although the sol-gel dipping method does not have a very old history, it has been an important technique for gaining new properties to glass and ceramics. In this study, the production, software, design and sensitivities of the device used in dip coating technique, which is one of the sol - gel coating techniques, were taken as the main issues. A new device has been developed to coat glass sheets of 50 cm long and produce substantially transparent conductive layers. In this new device, glass carrier arm is used to dipping them into a solution at a certain speed, waiting certain time period and removing them at the same speed in order to coat the surface with the colloidal suspensions formed by the solid particles in the prepared liquid named as sol. The device has been designed in laboratory environment, the software has been developed for arranging speed and waiting time period with manual and Bluetooth control. The performance of homemade dip coating device was evaluated according to optic and atomic force microscopy images and thin film thickness determined with special equation. According to the results, the film thickness of coated samples was almost 7 micrometres and the surface of the films was observed smooth with cracks.