Oxadiazole Based Polyether as Sensitive Films for Ratiometric Optical Temperature Detection

Abstract

A new type of polymer, based on the oxadiazole group, has been tested as indicator material for a ratiometric photoluminescence and optical reflection based temperature sensor in the temperature range between 30°C and 60°C. Thin films of the new polymer have been deposited by spin-coating on a glass substrate, excited by means of a low-cost near UV-LED. The optical spectrum, as detected by a fiber-based PC-card optical spectrometer, consisted of the reflection peak at the excitation wavelength and two distinct photoluminescence peaks at 430 nm and 480 nm, both in the blue spectral region. The peak amplitudes of all three spectral peaks depend linearly on the exciting light intensity. Changing the sample temperature, all peak amplitude values decrease monotonously with increasing temperature. By using a ratiometric approach, it has been found that the ratio between the two photoluminescence peaks was almost constant with temperature, while the ratio between the main photoluminescence peak at 430 nm and the reflection peak around 380 nm scaled nicely with the ambient temperature. Therefore, it has been proposed to use the latter criterion and a simple polynomial fit to the temperature versus peak amplitude relation.