Material characterization methods dielectric analysis

Although the above approaches may all be amenable to detection of crystallization in finished products, they can also be used to characterize the HME (i.e., prior to downstream processing). Further, many other techniques are often applied exclusively to the HME intermediate. For instance, optical microscopy offers excellent detectability of crystalline material in transparent extrudates. Dielectric analysis (DBA Alie et al. 2004 Bhugra et al. 2007, 2008) and thermally stimulated current IR spectroscopy (Shah et al. 2006 Rumondor and Taylor 2010), atomic force microscopy (ATM Lauer et al. 2013 Marsac et al. 2012 Price and Young 2004), and calorimetric methods have also been used to detect crystallization from an amorphous matrix (Baird and Taylor 2012 Pikal and Dellerman 1989 Avella et al. 1991). 

Nevertheless, historically a differentiation exists between "dielectric" and "impedance" spectroscopies. Traditional dielectric analysis has been applied primarily to the analysis of bulk "dielectric" properties of polymers, plastics, composites, and nonaqueous fluids with very high bulk material resistance. The dielectric method is characterized by using higher AC voltage amplitudes, temperature modulation as an independent variable, lack of DC voltage perturbation, and often operating frequencies above 1 kHz or measurements at several selected discrete frequencies [2, p. 33]. 

It is not a trivial problem to obtain a complete characterization of a material responding over many decades of time. The brute force method would be to carry out experiments over many decades of time. More efficient is to employ more than one instrument, and cover a time span that includes high frequencies. This is now possible with broad dielectric spectroscopy, with which the frequency reuige from 10 to 10 can be attained by using different techniques - time domain spectroscopy, frequency response analysis using AC-bridges, and coaxial line reflectrometry. Of course, each isothermal experiment has to be repeated at various temperatures in order to determine the temperature dependence. 

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