Fabrication and Dynamic Testing of Standard-Leak Based on Anodic Al-Oxide Membrane:A Theoretical and Experimental Study

A novel type of standard-leak with controllable molecular flow conductance was developed, comprising a circular anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane sandwiched and glued between the two holes of circular supporting silicon and oxygen-free copper discs.The conductance of the standard-leak can be well-controlled by adjusting the effective area of AAO membrane.The conductance, through the newly-developed standard-leaks with AAO effective diameters of 2 and 13 mm, was theoretically analyzed and experimentally evaluated with the lab-built test platform.The results show that the AAO-based standard-leak is capable of providing a constant molecular flow conductance of nitrogen/helium/argon.The measured and calculated results were found to be in good agreement.We suggest that the low coat, easy fabricated AAO-based standard-leak may be of some technological interest in leak detection and leakage rate calibration.