Would you like to put your expertise to work in a high-tech environment and contribute to strategic challenges?
As part of our growth, we are looking for our future HYDROXIDE CATALYSIS BONDING (HCB) FOR SPACE OR ASTRONOMY APPLICATIONS Intern. Within our Electronic department, made up of 25 team members, you will leverage your expertise to support our teams and contribute to the success of our projects.
Bertin Technologies provides equipment and instruments dedicated to harsh environments. Among those environments, space is a tricky one. Vacuum, radiation, launch shocks, satellite vibrations, thermal stress are a few of the constraints a spaceborne system must endure while keeping performances at the optimum. Astronomy is also very demanding, usually less than space from a mechanical point of view but a lot regarding stability, even in a cryogenic environment.
For the past few decades, Bertin Technologies designed, built and qualified pieces of equipment that are successfully operational in orbit or on many of the major telescopes in the world. This relays on many feats, proprietary building blocks and strong know-how. One critical step while manufacturing equipment is the assembly of the different parts it’s made of.
Various techniques are commonly used for such assemblies, among which are the use of UV cured adhesives, optical contacting (like the example above) or hydroxide catalysis bonding (HCB). Each technique has its own pros and cons. For HCB, the main advantages are the high stability of the assembly and its high mechanical strength. Practically, HCB consists in applying a very small amount of an alkaline solution (typically containing a hydroxide catalyst) between two highly polished surfaces.
The solution initiates a chemical reaction at the interface, leading to the formation of a permanent bond. After curing, the joint behaves almost like a monolithic piece of material. Bertin Technologies is able to perform HCB with parts made of fused silica.
This internship aims at better understanding the physical/chemical processes implied in HCB in order to optimize the HCB process on fused silica. The goal is also to adjust the process, if necessary, to apply this technique to other materials such as Zerodur (glass-ceramic material with an extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion) or Silicon for instance. Ideally, the adjusted processes shall be applied to samples and tested for stability and mechanical strength.
