Ryker Haddock, Brigham Young University
The purpose of this research is to develop a non-contact method for measuring the thermal properties of a material. The technology used is fluorescence thermometry, which involves reading the fluorescent signal emitted by a material and relating it to temperature. Although this is not a new technology, this application of the technology will allow us to measure properties at a microscopic level. To achieve this, we are using the PHR-803t laser optics found in the discontinued XBOX 360 HDDVD reader. This device was chosen due to its low cost, as well as the availability of an open-source project that provided a basis for controlling the laser optics. The temperature capture process is as follows: coat a sample with a photo-sensitive material; expose sample to blue laser (405 nm); heat the sample by modulated infrared laser; capture the emitted fluorescent signal with a photodiode; obtain the magnitude and phase shift of the fluorescent temperature compared to the heating laser through lock-in amplification; calculate temperature based on the magnitude and phase shift; fit theoretical curve to determine thermal property. My contributions to this research have been in the control of the lens actuator and laser diodes contained in the PHR-803t, lock-in amplifier circuitry, control of actuators for translation of the sample in 2D space, and system integration and design.