Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 607 Taylor Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2010 Jul;2(7):1884-91. doi: 10.1021/am100228j.
Bright infrared-emitting nanocomposites of unmodified CeF(3):Yb-Er with polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene (PS), which offer a vast range of potential applications, which include optical amplifiers, waveguides, laser materials, and implantable medical devices, were developed. For the optical application of these nanocomposites, it is critical to obtain highly transparent composites to minimize absorption and scattering losses. Preparation of transparent composites typically requires powder processing approaches that include sophisticated particle size control, deagglomeration, and dispersion stabilization methods leading to an increase in process complexity and processing steps. This work seeks to prepare transparent composites with high solids loading (>5 vol%) by matching the refractive index of the inorganic particle with low cost polymers like PMMA and PS, so as to circumvent the use of any complex processing techniques or particle surface modification. PS nanocomposites were found to exhibit better transparency than the PMMA nanocomposites, especially at high solids loading (>/=10 vol%). It was found that the optical transparency of PMMA nanocomposites was more significantly affected by the increase in solids loading and inorganic particle size because of the larger refractive index mismatch of the PMMA nanocomposites compared to that of PS nanocomposites. Rayleigh scattering theory was used to provide a theoretical estimate of the scattering losses in these ceramic-polymer nanocomposites.
制备具有高固体含量（>5 体积%）的透明复合材料的方法是通过匹配无机颗粒的折射率与低成本聚合物（如 PMMA 和 PS），以避免使用任何复杂的加工技术或颗粒表面改性。发现 PS 纳米复合材料比 PMMA 纳米复合材料具有更好的透明度，尤其是在高固体含量（≥10 体积%）时。研究发现，由于 PMMA 纳米复合材料的折射率失配大于 PS 纳米复合材料，因此 PMMA 纳米复合材料的光学透明度受固体含量和无机颗粒尺寸增加的影响更为显著。瑞利散射理论用于对这些陶瓷-聚合物纳米复合材料的散射损耗进行理论估计。
