New Materials from Radical Chain Polymerizations

[98][12523]拟议的研究将创造三种新型聚合物，它们具有用于新型光学和结构材料的有价值的特性。新材料的合成和基本化学和结构表征将由准备从事工业或学院/大学教学的化学研究生进行。大多数光学和机械性能将在物理学家和材料工程师合作的实验室中确定。丙烯酸聚合物复合材料将含有二氧化硅或聚苯乙烯的胶体球，排列成与可见光波长近似的晶格。复合材料将是可见光和近红外光的窄带抑制滤光片，并作为模型材料，以更深入地了解形态如何影响拉伸性能。PI还将制备含有C60（最丰富的巴克敏斯特富勒烯）的自由基链聚合物，以生产C60衍生物薄膜，以研究结构与非线性光学性质的关系。一个主要的目标是了解C60是如何结合到聚合物结构中的。有了这一认识，新的聚合物将被合成，以确定光学性质如何依赖于C60结构单元的取代模式。最后，乙烯基单体将在水包油微乳液中聚合，生成由一条聚合物链组成的纳米颗粒，分子量为106 Da。所有提出的合成都利用现成的起始材料和自由基链聚合，这是制造聚合物材料中最常用的方法。因此，从这项研究中获得的具有实用光学和机械性能的新材料应该是可实际生产并广泛应用的。这项研究将创造三种新型聚合物，并测试它们的光学和机械性能，以用于光通信设备和改良塑料

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.***