Photoacoustic procedure for measuring thermal parameters of transparent solids

The photothermal technique has been shown to be a versatile technique that may be adapted for the materials according to their characteristics, or even the properties under investigations. This allows to simplify operational procedures without losing accuracy. When applied to transparent materials, photoacoustic methods allow important thermal parameters to be obtained in a very fast fashion. An efficient photoacoustic procedure for the thermal characterization of transparent samples is proposed, which has been applied to polymeric films of poly(vinylidene fluoride), poly(methyl methacrylate), and poly(vinyl chloride).