We present herein a characterization of a standard method used at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) to produce hydrophobic silica aerogels and expand this method to obtain a wide range of refractive index (n = 1.006-1.14). We describe in detail the entire production process and explain the methods used to measure the characteristic parameters of aerogels, namely the refractive index, transmittance, and density. We use a small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique to relate the transparency to the fine structure of aerogels.
@article{arxiv.1112.3121,
title = {Hydrophobic silica aerogel production at KEK},
author = {Makoto Tabata and Ichiro Adachi and Hideyuki Kawai and Takayuki Sumiyoshi and Hiroshi Yokogawa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.3121},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
To be published in Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, 9 pages, 10 figures, 1 table