Measurement of accumulated contaminants in glassy carbon by RBS, ERD and NRA

It is important to remove water and other gaseous products of carbonization to produce good quality glassy (polymeric) carbon from resin precursors by pyrolysis. In this work, we have used Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) to detect impurity elements in glassy carbon specimens fabricated in our carbon processing laboratory. Elastic recoil detection (ERD) was used to measure hydrogen content. Resonance reactions such as (p,p') and (α,α') were used to enhance the detectability of various light elements. The results obtained are in agreement with those obtained by electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and residual gas analysis (RGA). (orig.)