Inspection of Ceramic Coatings Using Nanoindentation and Frequency Domain Photoacoustic Microscopy

Inspection of Ceramic Coatings Using Nanoindentation and Frequency Domain Photoacoustic Microscopy

The elastic properties and thickness of mullite environmental barrier coatings grown through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on silicon carbide substrates were measured using frequency domain photoacoustic microscopy. In this technique, extremely narrow bandwidth surface acoustic waves are generated with an amplitude modulated laser source. A photorefractive crystal based interferometer is used to detect the resulting surface displacement. The complex displacement field is mapped as a function of source-to-receiver distance in order to extract the wavelength of the surface acoustic wave at a given excitation frequency, and the phase velocity is determined. The coatings tested exhibited spatial variations in thickness and mechanical properties. The measured surface wave dispersion curves were used to extract an effective value for the elastic modulus and the coating thickness. Nanoindentation was used to validate the measurements of the effective elastic modulus. The average elastic modulus measured through the coating thickness using nanoindentation is compared to the effective modulus found using the photoacoustic system. Optical microscopy is used to validate the thickness measurements. The results indicate that the photoacoustic microscopy technique can be used to estimate the effective elastic properties in coatings exhibiting spatial inhomogeneities, potentially providing valuable feedback for the optimization of the CVD growth process.