Surface Characterization of Carbon Fibers by Atomic Force Microscopy: Roughness Quantification by Power Spectral Density

Abstract:

The topography of a surface consists of structures of different length scales. The surface roughness caused by these structures plays a decisive role in interfacial properties. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) can be applied to measure the surface topography with great accuracy and thus facilitates roughness quantification. Here, however, the data reduction poses a challenge. In a conventional approach, surface roughness parameters are evaluated based on averaging height differences, which leads to values dominated by the largest height differences of the surface topography. To quantify contributions of smaller structures to the roughness, a previous study presented a tunable local background correction, which eliminates structures on a larger than selected scale. Therefore, this method only considers surface structures smaller than the chosen scale. A different approach to quantify surface roughness on all length scales covered by AFM measurements uses Fourier transformation of the surface topography to calculate the power spectral density, which describes the amplitudes of different contributing spatial frequencies.In the current study, a new approach based on power spectral density is used to quantify surface roughness parameters as a function of the length scale of contributions to the surface topography. This procedure allows a comprehensive characterization of surface roughness and an intuitive comparison of different surfaces.The usefulness of this method and its compatibility to local background correction is demonstrated by analyzing several commercially available carbon fibers with and without different fiber surface treatments.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 742)
• Pages: 447-456
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.742.447
• Online since: July 2017
• Authors: Bastian Brück*, Thomas Guglhoer, Simon Haug, Christina Kunzmann, Michael Schulz, Tanja Schneck, Johanna Spoerl, Michael R. Buchmeiser, Siegfried R. Horn, Wolfgang M. Mueller
• Keywords: Atomic Force Microscopy, Carbon Fiber, Data Analysis, Power Spectral Density, Surface Characterization, Surface Roughness, Surface Topography

References

[1] A.G. Peressadko, N. Hosoda, B.N.J. Persson, Influence of surface roughness on adhesion between elastic bodies, Physical review letters 95 (2005) 124301.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.95.124301

[2] H. Nakae, R. Inui, Y. Hirata, H. Saito, Effects of surface roughness on wettability, Acta Materialia 46 (1998) 2313–2318.

DOI: 10.1016/s1359-6454(98)80012-8

[3] L.T. Drzal, N. Sugiura, D. Hook, The role of chemical bonding and surface topography in adhesion between carbon fibers and epoxy matrices, Composite Interfaces 4 (1996) 337–354.

DOI: 10.1163/156855497x00073

[4] A. Hampe, C. Marotzke, The Energy Release Rate of the Fiber/Polymer Matrix Interface: Measurement and Theoretical Analysis, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 16 (1997) 341–352.

DOI: 10.1177/073168449701600405

[5] C. Liu, J.A. Nairn, Analytical and experimental methods for a fracture mechanics interpretation of the microbond test including the effects of friction and thermal stresses, International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives 19 (1999) 59–70.

DOI: 10.1016/s0143-7496(98)00057-8

[6] J. Jäger, J. Moosburger-Will, S. Horn, Determination of nano-roughness of carbon fibers by atomic force microscopy, Journal of Materials Science 48 6803–6810.

DOI: 10.1007/s10853-013-7485-4

[7] J. Boudou, J. Paredes, A. Cuesta, A. Martı́nez-Alonso, J. Tascón, Oxygen plasma modification of pitch-based isotropic carbon fibres, Carbon 41 (2003) 41–56.

DOI: 10.1016/s0008-6223(02)00270-1

[8] C. Kunzmann, J. Moosburger-Will, S. Horn, High-resolution imaging of the nanostructured surface of polyacrylonitrile-based fibers, Journal of Materials Science 51 (2016) 9638–9648.

DOI: 10.1007/s10853-016-0197-9

[9] A. Bismarck, M.E. Kumru, J. Springer, J. Simitzis, Surface properties of PAN-based carbon fibers tuned by anodic oxidation in different alkaline electrolyte systems, Applied Surface Science 143 (1999) 45–55.

DOI: 10.1016/s0169-4332(98)00929-5

[10] A. Bismarck, M.E. Kumru, J. Springer, Influence of Oxygen Plasma Treatment of PAN-Based Carbon Fibers on Their Electrokinetic and Wetting Properties, Journal of colloid and interface science 210 (1999) 60–72.

DOI: 10.1006/jcis.1998.5912

[11] J. Jang, H. Yang, The effect of surface treatment on the performance improvement of carbon fiber/polybenzoxazine composites, Journal of Materials Science 35 (2000) 2297–2303.

[12] N. Dilsiz, J. Wightman, Surface analysis of unsized and sized carbon fibers, Carbon 37 (1999) 1105–1114.

DOI: 10.1016/s0008-6223(98)00300-5

[13] F. El Feninat, S. Elouatik, T.H. Ellis, E. Sacher, I. Stangel, Quantitative assessment of surface roughness as measured by AFM: application to polished human dentin, Applied Surface Science 183 (2001) 205–215.

DOI: 10.1016/s0169-4332(01)00558-x

[14] J.M. Elson, J.M. Bennett, Calculation of the power spectral density from surface profile data, Applied optics 34 (1995) 201–208.

DOI: 10.1364/ao.34.000201

[15] S.J. Fang, S. Haplepete, W. Chen, C.R. Helms, H. Edwards, Analyzing atomic force microscopy images using spectral methods, Journal of Applied Physics 82 (1997) 5891–5898.

DOI: 10.1063/1.366489

[16] B.N.J. Persson, O. Albohr, U. Tartaglino, A.I. Volokitin, E. Tosatti, On the nature of surface roughness with application to contact mechanics, sealing, rubber friction and adhesion, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 17 (2004) R1.

DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/17/1/r01

[17] P.H.C. Eilers, A Perfect Smoother, Analytical Chemistry 75 (2003) 3631–3636.

DOI: 10.1021/ac034173t

[18] F.J. Harris, On the use of windows for harmonic analysis with the discrete Fourier transform, Proceedings of the IEEE 66 (1978) 51–83.

DOI: 10.1109/proc.1978.10837