CONSTRUCTION OF A DIP COATING UNIT WITH TEMPERATURE CONTROL FOR THIN FILMS DEPOSITION

Dip coating is a very popular technique to fabricate thin films and relies heavily on velocity and position control and for uniformity and repeatability in the immersion and withdrawal. In addition, the viscosity of the solution can be generally regulated by temperature control to guarantee homogeneity in the deposition process, which is often overlooked due to manufacturing constraints. The objective of this work is the construction of a simple dip-coating equipment with temperature control. It is composed of cheap, accessible components and reused materials, and the control allows fine adjustment of the dipping and pulling velocities, final position, deposition time, and temperature. The user is presented with two interface options, a display attached to the equipment and linked to a microcontroller, and a computer supervisory application developed in LabVIEW. The final product was assessed as satisfactory and ready for use in laboratory experiments.