Homogenous Reference Materials

[JBurger]

I'm looking for some standard reference materials for use in calibration of VNIR and NIR systems.

At the EASIM conference, there was some discussion regarding the inappropriate use of some plastic materials, because they are crystalline or may have some phase separations. Obviously at some degree of magnification, anything becomes very heterogeneous. But for images where pixel resolution is say 100 um to 1 mm, what would and would NOT be a good plastic material to image? I"m thinking of samples from 10 x 10 mm to 100 x 100 mm or 20 x 300 mm.

-Jim

[JanieDubois]

Hi Jim,
Our experience in NIR imaging has shown that white ceramics (no coating obviously) are great reference materials. They are generally homogeneous at the micron scale and can be cleaned easily.
I hope this helps!

[JBurger]

Hi Janie,

Yes, white ceramic is good for some things, but the main problem is, it is WHITE. I'm looking for a homogenous material with some significant spectral peaks, not a broad flat response. I know from experience that plastics have very nice NIR spectra, but I"m not a plastics expert. My question is more of a physical one: what physical production processes would produce the best uniformity in a plastic material?

-Jim