Executive Summary : | Soft-matter systems are ubiquitous in the industry and scientific worlds ranging from nanoscale to the supra-microscales exhibiting complexity and flexibility at temperatures comparable with their ambience. Commercially, they have a massive global scale, e.g., the polymers market is over 87-billion-USD-per-annum with annual growth >4%. However, the stability and robustness of these systems is always in question, be it polymers, emulsions, foams, biomaterials or in any other forms. Their delicate complex flexible nature calls for non-contact in situ versatile characterization devices over a wide parameter range in temperature (-10-to-150C) and size (200nm or more). We address this challenge on industry- and lab-scales by implementing an optical (consequently non-contact), in situ characterization and testing system which is indigenously developed (consequently low-cost) from conception to completion. |