Dissipation factor

Abstract: Theory and experimental results are presented to show the possibility of using a resonant post technique for characterizing dielectric and magnetic materials at microwave frequencies. Results of the temperature dependence of the relative dielectric constant of nonmagnetic materials with /spl epsilon//sub r/, varying from 4 to 60 are presented and also loss tangent measurements at room temperature. The complex permittivity and permeability of a number of garnet materials has also been measured with 4/spl pi//spl gamma/M/sub s/ / /spl omega/ varying from 0.25 to 0.8. The measured real part of the permeability is in good agreement with the theoretical predictions of Schlomann and the imaginary part of the permeability agrees with measurements by Green et al. on similar materials.

Abstract: Microwave dielectric heating is rapidly becoming an established procedure in synthetic chemistry. This review summarises the basic theory underlying microwave dielectric heating and collates the dielectric data for a wide range of organic solvents which are commmonly used in microwave syntheses. The loss tangents of the solvents, which may be related to the ability of the solvent to absorb energy in a microwave cavity, depend on the relaxation times of the molecules. These relaxation times depend critically on the nature of the functional groups and the volume of the molecule. Functional groups capable of hydrogenbonding have a particularly strong influence on the relaxation times. The relaxation times of solvents decrease as the temperature of the solvent is increased. Loss tangent data at different microwave frequencies are also presented and discussed.

Abstract: We have measured the energy dissipation of the quartz crystal microbalance(QCM), operating in the liquid phase, when mono- or multi-layers of bio-molecules and biofilms form on the QCM electrode (with a time resolution of ca. 1 s). Examples are taken from protein adsorption, lipid vesicle adsorption and cell adhesion studies. Our results show that even very thin (a few nm) biofilms dissipate a significant amount of energy owing to the QCM oscillation. Various mechanisms for this energy dissipation are discussed. Three main contributions to the measured increase in energy dissipation are considered. (i) A viscoelastic porous structure (the biofilm) that is strained during oscillation, (ii) trapped liquid that moves between or in and out of the pores due to the deformation of the film and (iii) the load from the bulk liquid which increases the strain of the film. These mechanisms are, in reality, not entirely separable, rather, they constitute an effective viscoelastic load. The biofilms can therefore not be considered rigidly coupled to the QCM oscillation. It is further shown theoretically that viscoelastic layers with thicknesses comparable to the biofilms studied in this work can induce energy dissipation of the same magnitude as the measured ones.