Optical properties of polymers

Many polymers in everyday use contain fillers and colouring agents that render them opaque. The optical properties of the base polymer are thus obscured. On the other hand the clarity of optical transmission of many polymers and the fact that they are almost colourless, coupled with their low density and excellent mechanical properties, are the reasons for their use to replace glass in many applications. In other applications glass would be totally inappropriate because of its greater brittleness. Other polymers, such as the ubiquitous polyethylene, are often colourless but translucent rather than transparent. 

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Uld aviolet spectroscopy and photoluminescence are used to study the optical properties of polymers. These spectra provide information about the conjugation along die polymer backbone and the photo behavior of die polymers. 

Liao, Y. Anderson, C. Y. Sullivan, P. A. Akelaitis, A. J. P. Robinson, B. H. Dalton, L. R., Electro optical properties of polymers containing alternating nonlinear optical chromophores and bulky spacers, Chem. Mater. 2006, 18, 1062 1067... 

Ramasesha, S., Pati, S.K., Krishnamurthy, H.R., Shuai, Z., Bredas, J.L. Low-lying electronic excitations and nonlinear optic properties of polymers via symmetrized density matrix renormalization group method. Synth. Met. 1997, 85(1-3), 1019. 

As with virtually every other material property, if a polymer possesses optical properties comparable to those of a glass or metal, it will be utilized simply on the basis of weight savings, all other factors being equal. As a result, much of the development in the optical properties of polymers is related to creating glass-like transmissivities or metallike reflectivities. There are also a few unique optical characteristics of polymers that... 

Nonhnear absorption is the key mechanism responsible for 3D structuring of materials, including photoresists and photosensitive resins. Optical nonhn-earities take place when intensity of the irradiating electrical approaches that of molecular couphng, which occurs at the levels of approximately 10 ° V/m or 100 GW/cm. Detailed description of optical properties of polymers can be foimd in the literature [8]. Among the optical nonhnearities, multipho-... 

G. H. Meeten, Optical Properties of Polymers. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1986). 

Nonlinear Optical Properties of Polymers Heeger, A. J. Orenstein, J. Ulrich, D. R., Eds. Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings Pittsburgh, 1987 Vol. 109. 

Barzoukas, M. Fremaux, P. Josse, D. Kajzer, F. Zyss, J. In Nonlinear optical Properties of Polymers. Heeger, A.J. Orenstein, J. Ulrich, D.R. Eds. Material Research Society Pittsburgh, 1988, pl71... 

The refractive indices before and after photoirradiation were measured for a series of mesoionic compounds including 3-phenyl-l,2,3,4-thiatriazolium-5-thiolate. The knowledge of these data allows controlling the optical properties of polymers. The results obtained in <2002MI2290> suggest the applicability of photoelimination of 3-phenyl-l,2,3,4-thiatriazolium-5-thiolate to make various refractive index patterns for polymeric film. It has also been shown that the refractive index changes of mesoionic compounds are proportional to the number of sulfur atoms in the mesoionic skeletons. 

In the previous sections, theories were reviewed where the optical properties of polymer liquids were cast in terms of the microscopic properties of the constituent chains. The dynamics of polymer chains subject to external fields that orient and distort these complex liquids are considered in this section for a variety of systems ranging from dilute solutions to melts. Detailed descriptions of theories for the dynamics and structure of polymer fluids subject to flow are found in a number of books, including those by Bird et al. [62], Doi and Edwards [63], and Larson [64],... 

Meeten GH (Ed), "Optical Properties of Polymers", Elsevier Applied Science Publishers, London, 1986. 

Barford W, "Electronic and Optical Properties of Polymers", Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005. 

Heeger AJ, Orenstein J and Ulrich DR (Eds), "Nonlinear Optical Properties of Polymers", Materials Res Soc Symposium Proceedings, Vol. 109, Pittsburgh, 1988. 

Wijekoon WMKP and Prasad PN, "Nonlinear Optical Properties of Polymers", in Mark JE (Ed), "Physical Properties of Polymers Handbook", AIP Press, Woodbury, NY, 1996, Chap. 38. 

The unusual non-linear optical properties of polymer diacetylenes opened attractive prospects for their application in three or four-wave parametric amplifiers. Sauteret etal. reported that with a 1.06 pm, 1 GW/cm pump the gain for four-wave parametric amplification in the near infrared in PTS is about ten times larger than the gain for three-wave parametric amplification in LiNbOs. However, later work... 

Considerable interest has been focused on both polymer-polymer mixtures and mixtures of polymers with low molecular weight solvents. Polymer-solvent systems have been extensively investigated in the solution range where the mixture contains an appreciable amount of solvent. Much less attention has been devoted to systems containing only a small amount of solvent which is then usually called additive. These systems are interesting from both an academic and industrial point of view. In fact, additives are widely used to affect the mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties of polymers. The mechanism by which additives become active is important not only because it enables us to understand the properties of the mixture, but also frequently because of its relevance to the pure polymer component. 

Hydrodynamic and optical properties of polymers [NP(OR)2]n [R = CH2CF3, CH2(CF2)2H, CH2(CF2)4H] have been analysed. Mechanical properties of polyphosphazene-silicate nanocomposites, prepared from (NP[(0CH2CH2)20Me]2 n (MEEP) and tetraethoxysilane, have been investigated as function of the catalyst used. ... 

Finally, the optical activity of polymers that contain a very large number of inherently achiral chromophores in a chiral arrangement may be treated by methods developed in solid-state physics, like the other optical properties of polymers. The resulting theoretical description can be viewed as a generalization of the exciton-chirality model. 

Knoll W (1996) Optical properties of polymers. In Encyclopedia of applied physics. VCH, Weinheim, chap 14, p 569... 

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