Auger Electron Spectroscopy of Controlled Delaminating Materials on Aluminium Surfaces

This master thesis in physics mainly treats Auger spectroscopy of interfaces that has been adhesively bond together with so called controlled delaminating materials (CDM). CDM is a new technology which involves adhesives with the distinctive property that they by the appliance of electricity can be released from a substrate. The reason for using Auger spectroscopy was that it gives a surface sensitive view of the chemical composition of the samples examined and this was believed to give hints of the mechanisms behind loss of adhesion. The samples were so called laminates which is an aluminium foil, CDM adhesive, aluminium foil structure. As expected Auger spectroscopy produced some promising results, especially regarding the breakdown of a certain anion contained into the examined CDM adhesive. This awoke new questions regarding how this anion was decomposed and the idea that it could be due to hydrolysis took form. The by far most important result within this work is that the anion breaks down. This could lead to the formation of hydrofluoric acid if this breakdown in fact is due to hydrolysis and the hydrofluoric acid could then react with the aluminium causing loss of adhesion. This could be the good starting point of a continuing work on CDM