Hydrophobic silica aerogel production at KEK

TL;DR

This paper details the production and characterization of hydrophobic silica aerogels at KEK, including methods to vary refractive index and analyze structural properties using SAXS.

Contribution

It introduces an expanded production method for silica aerogels with a wide refractive index range and correlates transparency with microstructure using SAXS.

Findings

Successful production of hydrophobic silica aerogels with refractive indices 1.006-1.14

Detailed characterization of aerogel parameters including refractive index, transmittance, and density

Correlation between transparency and fine structure via SAXS analysis

Abstract

We present herein a characterization of a standard method used at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) to produce hydrophobic silica aerogels and expand this method to obtain a wide range of refractive index (n = 1.006-1.14). We describe in detail the entire production process and explain the methods used to measure the characteristic parameters of aerogels, namely the refractive index, transmittance, and density. We use a small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique to relate the transparency to the fine structure of aerogels.