This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop methods and instrumentation which will permit evaluation of the thickness and integrity of thin film protective coatings on surfaces. The proposed techniques are based on the company's Multi Photon Detection (MPD) technology, a radioanalytic method which uses exempt amounts of radioisotope and provides 1,000 fold sensitivity improvements over current methods. By selectively incorporating appropriate radioactive tags in the protective surface film layer and imaging the surface distribution of the tags using the MPD Imager, the thickness and uniformity of the coating layers may be measured with unprecedented precision. Using this technique surface layer thickness can be measured down to monolayer levels. If successful, the techniques developed under this project could result in a powerful new tool for measuring the initial properties of surface coating layers and their behavior under diverse operating conditions. This tool will have widespread applicability in production and process control methods as well as the longer term monitoring of wear and corrosion effects in large mechanical systems.
