Studying the polymerization of 2-(hydroxyethyl) methacrylate using laser ultrasonics techniques

Abstract

International audienceBiocompatible polymerized 2-(hydroxyethyl) methacrylate (pHEMA) is a very popular material for medical applications. Despite different studies, realised recently, there are still many questions to be answered concerning the polymerisation processes of HEMA upon compression, which does not require an initiator [1]. For this reason, the application of non-destructive contactless laser ultrasonic techniques to the evaluation of HEMA properties looks very promising. In this work, we present the measurements of longitudinal sound velocity in HEMA in a diamond anvil cell (DAC), using well known sub-nanosecond experimental setup. First results obtained using picosecond ultrasonics are also presented. These results are compared then for a validation