Conducting Polymer Composites for Use as Infrared Polarizers

当共轭聚合物掺杂到其导电形式时，在整个红外波段具有强烈的吸收和高反射。因此，导电聚合物是用作红外偏振器的理想材料。一种新的制备机械坚固的复合聚合物薄膜的方法，该薄膜通过拉伸取向并含有所需比例的掺杂共轭聚合物，用于中红外和远红外偏振器。UNIAX将通过凝胶处理导电聚合物复合材料来制造均匀的、薄的、定向的薄膜，以产生稳定的、具有偏振抑制比的、适合光谱工作的掺杂薄膜。在第一阶段，将独立控制和表征取向聚乙烯/导电聚合物共混物的红外光学密度和红外二向色性，并测试所得到的红外偏振器的稳定性。

Conjugated polymers are strongly absorbing and highly reflecting throughout the infrared when doped to their conducting form. Conducting polymers are, therefore, ideal for use as infrared polarizers. A novel method to fabricate mechanically robust composite polymer films, oriented by tensile drawing and containing a desired fraction of doped conjugated polymers, for use as polarizers in the mid- and far infrared. UNIAX will fabricate uniform, thin, aligned films by gel-processing conducting polymer composites to produce stable, doped films with polarization rejection ratio suitable for spectroscopic work. During Phase I, the infrared-optical density and the infrared- dichroism of the oriented polyethylene/conducting polymer blends will be independently controlled and characterized, and the stability of the resulting infrared polarizers will be tested.