An approach to predict the solid film thickness possibly yielded from an alumina sol-gel liquid film

The Landau–Levich–Derjaguin (LLD) equation is widely used to predict the thickness of wet layer deposited on substrate by dip-coating. But it cannot effectively predict the solid film thickness yielded from the sol-gel liquid layer. Considering the solid content, the amount of solution sticking to the surface of substrate and the density of the sol-gel derived solids materials are the main factors determining the solid film thickness, a new approach capable of directly predicting what an oxide film thickness of a liquid layer on the substrate could yield without really sintering at high temperature was developed. It was found that the predicted and measured thicknesses for both compact and porous Al2O3 films were in good accordance. The approach uses very common testing techniques and does not concern the aspects such as solution composition, Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluid, withdrawal speed, viscosity, and liquid–vapor surface tension, etc. So the method is much timesaving and economical, and will be a good supplement for thickness determination techniques, especially under some circumstances where use of SEM, XRR, ellipsometer analyses are limited.