Hydrophobic silica aerogel production at KEK
  We present herein a characterization of a standard method used at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) to produce hydrophobic silica aerogels and expand this method to obtain a wide range of refractive index (n = 1.006-1.14). We describe in detail the entire production process and explain the methods used to measure the characteristic parameters of aerogels, namely the refractive index, transmittance, and density. We use a small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique to relate the transparency to the fine structure of aerogels. 
Makoto Tabata, Ichiro Adachi, Hideyuki Kawai, Takayuki Sumiyoshi,   Hiroshi Yokogawa
physics.ins-det hep-ex nucl-ex