New Materials from Radical Chain Polymerizations

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98 12523FordThe proposed research will create three new types of polymers having properties valuable for new optical and structural materials. The syntheses and the basic chemical and structural characterization of new materials will be carried out by chemistry graduate students who are preparing for careers in industry or in college/university teaching. Most of the optical and mechanical properties will be determined in the laboratories of collaborating physicists and materialsengineers. Acrylic polymer composites will be prepared containing colloidal spheres of silica or polystyrene ordered into crystal lattices with approximate dimensions of the wavelength of visible light. The composites will be narrow band rejection filters of visible and near infrared light and as model materials for deeper understanding of how the morphology affects the tensile properties. The PI's will also prepare radical chain polymers that incorporate C60, the most abundant Buckminsterfullerene, to produce films of C60 derivatives for investigation of the relation of the structures to the nonlinear optical properties. A major goal is to understand how the C60 is bonded into the polymer structures. With that understanding new polymers will be synthesized to determine how the optical properties depend on the pattern of substitution of the C60 structural units. Finally, vinyl monomers will be polymerized in oil-in-water microemulsions to produce nanoparticles consisting of one polymer chain and having molecular weights of 106 Da. %%%All of the proposed syntheses utilize readily available starting materials and radical chain polymerization, the method most common in manufacturing of polymeric materials. Thus new materials from this research having practical optical and mechanical properties should be practical to produce for widespread application. This research will create three new types of polymers and test their optical and mechanical properties for potential use in optical communication devices and in improved plastics.***