title: Full-field optical thickness profilometry of semitransparent thin films with transmission densitometry.
abstract: A novel bidirectional thickness profilometer based on transmission densitometry was designed to measure the localized thickness of semitransparent films on a dynamic manufacturing line. The densitometer model shows that, for materials with extinction coefficients between 0.3 and 2.9?D/mm, 100-500microm measurements can be recorded with less than +/-5% error at more than 10,000 locations in real time. As a demonstration application, the thickness profiles of 75mmx100?mm regions of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) were determined by converting the optical density of the sample to thickness with the Beer-Lambert law. The PEM extinction coefficient was determined to be 1.4D/mm, with an average thickness error of 4.7%.
authors.affiliation: The G. W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Tequila
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Harris