Photolithography is a process used in the manufacturing of integrated circuits. It involves using light to transfer a pattern onto a substrate, typically a silicon wafer.
Spray drying is a method of forming a dry powder from a liquid or slurry by rapidly drying with a hot gas. This is the preferred method of drying of many thermally-sensitive materials such as foods and pharmaceuticals, or materials which may require extremely consistent, fine particle size. Air is the heated drying medium; however, if the liquid is a flammable solvent such as ethanol or the product is oxygen-sensitive then nitrogen is used.
Spray painting is a painting technique in which a device sprays coating material through the air onto a surface. The most common types employ compressed gas—usually air—to atomize and direct the paint particles.
Phosphor thermometry is an optical method for surface temperature measurement. The method exploits luminescence emitted by phosphor material. Phosphors are fine white or pastel-colored inorganic powders which may be stimulated by any of a variety of means to luminesce, i.e. emit light. Certain characteristics of the emitted light change with temperature, including brightness, color, and afterglow duration. The latter is most commonly used for temperature measurement.
Conformal coating is a protective, breathable coating of thin polymeric film applied to printed circuit boards (PCBs). Conformal coatings are typically applied at 25–250 μm to the electronic circuitry and protect against moisture and other severe conditions.
Flow visualization or flow visualisation in fluid dynamics is used to make the flow patterns visible, in order to get qualitative or quantitative information on them.
A spray bottle is a bottle that can squirt, spray or mist fluids.
Thermal spraying techniques are coating processes in which melted materials are sprayed onto a surface. The "feedstock" is heated by electrical or chemical means.
A venturi scrubber is designed to effectively use the energy from a high-velocity inlet gas stream to atomize the liquid being used to scrub the gas stream. This type of technology is a part of the group of air pollution controls collectively referred to as wet scrubbers.
A spray nozzle or atomizer is a device that facilitates the dispersion of a liquid by the formation of a spray. The production of a spray requires the fragmentation of liquid structures, such as liquid sheets or ligaments, into droplets, often by using kinetic energy to overcome the cost of creating additional surface area. A wide variety of spray nozzles exist, that make use of one or multiple liquid breakup mechanisms, which can be divided into three categories: liquid sheet breakup, jets and capillary waves. Spray nozzles are of great importance for many applications, where the spray nozzle is designed to have the right spray characteristics.
Arthur Henry Lefebvre was a British scientist and an innovative leader in the science and engineering of fuel sprays and combustion in gas turbines.
The Institute for Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, (ILASS), is an organization of researchers, industrial practitioners and students engaged in professional activities connected with the spraying of liquids and slurries. Annual technical conferences are organized by each of the ILASS organizations ILASS-Americas, ILASS-Asia, and ILASS-Europe. ILASS-International is board made up of representatives from the three regional ILASS Institutes.
Adhesive bonding describes a wafer bonding technique with applying an intermediate layer to connect substrates of different types of materials. Those connections produced can be soluble or insoluble. The commercially available adhesive can be organic or inorganic and is deposited on one or both substrate surfaces. Adhesives, especially the well-established SU-8, and benzocyclobutene (BCB), are specialized for MEMS or electronic component production.
Pesticide application refers to the practical way in which pesticides are delivered to their biological targets. Public concern about the use of pesticides has highlighted the need to make this process as efficient as possible, in order to minimise their release into the environment and human exposure. The practice of pest management by the rational application of pesticides is supremely multi-disciplinary, combining many aspects of biology and chemistry with: agronomy, engineering, meteorology, socio-economics and public health, together with newer disciplines such as biotechnology and information science.
Ultrasonic nozzles are a type of spray nozzle that use high frequency vibrations produced by piezoelectric transducers acting upon the nozzle tip that create capillary waves in a liquid film. Once the amplitude of the capillary waves reaches a critical height, they become too tall to support themselves and tiny droplets fall off the tip of each wave resulting in atomization.
Electrostatic coating is a manufacturing process that employs charged particles to more efficiently paint a workpiece. Paint, in the form of either powdered particles or atomized liquid, is initially projected towards a conductive workpiece using normal spraying methods, and is then accelerated toward the work piece by a powerful electrostatic charge.
A spray is a dynamic collection of drops dispersed in a gas. The process of forming a spray is known as atomization. A spray nozzle is the device used to generate a spray. The two main uses of sprays are to distribute material over a cross-section and to generate liquid surface area. There are thousands of applications in which sprays allow material to be used most efficiently. The spray characteristics required must be understood in order to select the most appropriate technology, optimal device and size.
Harvey Berger was a scientist and inventor. He invented the modern commercial ultrasonic nozzle, which in its application has brought many benefits to the fields of research, combustion and manufacturing. Berger founded Sono-Tek Corporation based on this technology and while working at the company he made contributions to the fields of combustion, semiconductor manufacturing, electronic printed circuit board manufacturing, drug eluting stents and spray drying. Berger died in August 2007 after a struggle with liver cancer. He was survived by his wife Donna and by his three children, Michael, Robyn and Barbara.
Rotary atomizers use a high speed rotating disk, cup or wheel to discharge liquid at high speed to the perimeter, forming a hollow cone spray. The rotational speed controls the drop size. Spray drying and spray painting are the most important and common uses of this technology.
