Tuning the Optical and Rheological Properties of Host-guest Systems based on an Epoxy Acrylate and MMA

Polymers with individually adjusted optical and rheological properties are gaining more and more importance in industrial applications like information technologies and for biological use. With respect to the aspired applications the refractive index n of a matrix polymer has to be adjusted. For a refractive index increase an electron-rich organic dopant like phenanthrene is added to a commercially available reactive polymer based resin (epoxy acrylate). For a refractive index reduction hexafluorobutyl methacrylate is added to a different MMA-based resin. Changes in viscosity for applications like ink-jet printing can be achieved by using a comonomer with suitable properties. As a result of the investigation the change in viscosity went from 47 Pa•s (pure resin) down to 4 mPa•s (pure difunctional monomer). Adding phenanthrene to the pure epoxy acrylate based polymer matrix the refractive index increased linearly with dopant concentration. For a decreasing refractive index a change from 1.49 down to 1.42 was obtained.