An application of photoacoustic technique is developed for determining the thermal diffusivity coefficient and the thermal conductivity of transparent materials. The backing material which supports the sample is made optically opaque, i.e., it entirely absorbs the incident light, and the converted heat diffuses through the sample heating the gas in contact with its opposite surface. The method is illustrated by fitting voltage amplitude and phase signals versus the chopping frequency in the photoacoustic cell, according to a theoretical model of heat diffusion. Thermal parameters obtained for three polymers compare very well with results from the literature.
Photothermal spectroscopies, photopyroelectric and photoacoustic, were used to obtain physical parameters of polyaniline–emeraldine base (PANI-EB) and poly(o-methoxyaniline)–emeraldine base (POMA-EB), such as thermic parameters like thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, and specific heat. These studies were done for PANI-EB and POMA-EB films in the 400<λ<900 nm wavelength range. The photopyroelectric intensity Vn(f ) and the phase Fn(f ) (f being the chopping frequency) for a given λ of the saturation part of the PPES spectrum signal were independently measured, as well as the intensity Vn(λ) and its phase Fn(λ). Equations of both the intensity and the phase of the PPES signal, taking into account the thermal and the optical characteristics of the PANI and POMA films and the pyroelectric detector, were used to fit the experimental results. It was observed that, in contrast with the strong doping dependence of the electrical conductivity, the thermal parameters of PANI films remained practically unchanged under doping. This apparent discrepancy is explained by the granular metal model of doped PANI.
Thermal parameters and the optical gap of undoped poly(3-butylthiophene) films were determined by photopyroelectric spectroscopy, using a PVDF film as the pyroelectric detector. The band gap energy was determined using both the amplitude and the phase curves for different chopping frequencies. When the theoretical model developed by Mandelis and Zver [J. Appl. Phys. 57, 4421 (1985)], was applied to the experimental results comprising amplitude and phase difference spectra, the thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity were obtained as fitting parameters.
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