Date of Award

3-6-2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

LaVern A. Starman, PhD

Abstract

Research was accomplished to characterize the electrical and physical characteristic changes of the Thornel® P-100 carbon fiber and five variants when intercalated with 96% sulfuric acid and incorporated the use of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) structures for testing purposes. The five fiber variants were oxidized in 1 M nitric acid at 0.5 A for 30 seconds, 1 and 2 minutes, the last two samples were detreated at 1150 °C for one hour prior to the nitric acid treatment. The fibers were mounted onto a MEMS die, placed into a chip carrier, sulfuric acid added, the chip carrier sealed and testing accomplished. This thesis explains the approach and methods that were completed to mount carbon fibers. We have designed MEMS structures with an inset trench that 10 μm carbon fibers can be mounted into for testing. Which reduced the amount of coverage required to bind the fiber in place. The original and five anodically oxidized fibers were inspected with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), studied with Raman spectroscopy, and small signal responses were measured from 20Hz to 1 MHz.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENG-07-25

DTIC Accession Number

ADA469495

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